Sherry Chandler

More stodgy old formalists?

…from this morning’s NYTimes, Renovations to a Study Room by Aalto Splits Harvard Faculty :

A renovation of a Harvard University poetry reading room designed by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto has drawn heated objections from architects and preservationists who say the room should be maintained exactly as Aalto created it.

The renovation of the 1,030-square-foot Woodberry Poetry Room, for which Aalto designed wooden screens, bookshelves, bentwood chairs, listening stations and organically shaped brass light fixtures, began on June 9. The room is scheduled to reopen on Sept. 11, around the start of the new school year.

Harvard officials say the renovation is a modest and practical one intended to replace broken chair legs, frayed wiring and a worn-out floor so that the room can remain in use. The room also lacks contemporary study space and modern technological capabilities, like the ability to play digital recordings and handle computers.

Opponents counter that Aalto’s signature fittings in the reading and listening room — one of four projects he carried out in the United States — should be restored, not altered. Change a piece here or there, these critics argue, and the whole is destroyed. “It represents a total design,” said Toshiko Mori, the chairman of the architecture department at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

…

The poetry room is named for George Edward Woodberry, a literary critic, poet and professor who graduated from Harvard in 1877. Intended as a place to read and listen to contemporary poetry, its original incarnation was in Widener Library in 1931. Aalto was commissioned to design a new room when the Lamont Library was built, in 1949.

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