The Free Public Library of Concord.
The Library Building at Concord occupies the slightly elevated central portion of a triangular piece of ground nearly an acre in extent, at the junction of Sudbury street with Main street.
The principal entrance faces easterly the junction of the two streets, and is approached in front by a path from that point, and also at the sides by one from each street.
The entrance porch, twelve feet wide, has an ornamental gable bearing upon a sandstone slab the word “Library” in relief.
It has a frontage forty-seven feet wide and thirty-seven feet deep, with walls fourteen feet height to the eaves, and a roof rising eight feet more to the ridge. Behind this is seen a wall of the book room twenty-seven feet high, with a projecting central gable rising above it, and the roof rising by two angles nineteen feet above the eaves. Still behind this rises a tower forty-five feet high surmounted by a spire; the whole height of which from the ground is about eighty-five feet. This tower forms a central projection on the western exterior façade, and a recess in the interior of the main room. The northerly and southerly ends of this main part of the building face severally on the two streets, and are each divided into three angles, which rise above the eaves and terminate in gables at the height of thirty-eight feet. The spire and roofs are covered with blue, red and green slate, disposed ornamentally.
The materials used in the walls are dark faced-brick laid in black mortar, with a tasteful introduction of black brick about the windows and elsewhere ornamentally arranged.
Buttresses between the windows and on the corners of numerous angles are capped with drab sandstone, which has also been used for window sills, and in bands encircling the building in lines parallel with its base, which is of granite.
The resulting effect is a sober tone, encouraging a fancy that the building may have been standing already many years. The architects say that in the treatment of the design it has been intended to adapt the picturesque features of medieval architecture to the requirements and construction of this nineteenth century. The extreme exterior dimensions are eighty-eight by fifty-eight feet.
The grounds are enclosed by a substantial wrought iron fence resting on a granite base.
Entering the building through the open porch which protects steps rising to the principal entrance, you pass into a vestibule ten feet square, paved with red and blue tile, and lighted from above. From this, at the right hand, a door leads to the work room and to the private rooms of the librarian and trustees, and, facing the entrance, are glass folding doors opening into a corridor eight and a half feet wide, paved with ornamental tiles and lighted from above. This corridor, twenty-seven feet long, opens in front into the main hall or book room, and on the left leads to the reading room, and to a private entrance to the building and to stairs to the basement. All these rooms are on one level.
The greatest length of the great hall lies across the approach from the corridor. The room measures fifty feet by thirty feet, but the effect is that of a larger room, for, opposite to and facing the entrance is a recess eight and a half feet wide, eleven feet deep and twenty-five feet high, formed within the tower, and, opposite to it, over the entrance, is a similar recess. Within these recesses iron stair cases lead to two galleries above: that over the entrance commencing in one of the side rooms. Each end of this book room is shaped like three sides of an octagon. In all those sides and in the rear of the tower recess are windows under the first gallery three feet wide and four feet high. The principal openings through which the interior is lighted commence at eighteen feet from the floor on the second gallery, where, in each of the six octagonal spaces, as well as in each of the three sides of the tower are windows three feet wide and eleven feet high, cutting through and rising above the entablature that surrounds the room at twenty-five feet from the floor. This gives a lofty and stately effect to the room.
Above the cornice of the entablature the ceiling rises by two inclinations to a central level portion thirty-seven feet from the floor. This portion is divided into three square panels by beams which rise from the piers forming the pilasters, four from each side, and two from each end of the room. Upon these piers the roof is supported. The continuity of wall space for book-cases is broken at intervals of ten feet by the pilasters which project one foot from the walls. On the main floor ornamental book-cases project from those pilasters into the room. The book capacity of the floor may, by increasing such projections and by a little crowding, be made to reach about twenty thousand volumes.
The first galley, nine feet above the floor, affords access to shelving upon it that occupies the walls around the entire room and the recesses, and also to two rooms for duplicate books and pamphlets over the offices and reading room, not visible from the main room. The capacity of this gallery is eleven thousand volumes.
The second gallery, seventeen and a half feet above the floor, does not cross the central window at either end of the room, and the wall space upon it being broken by the principal windows which rise from it there is room for three or four thousand volumes only. Thus the total capacity of the building is not far from thirty-five thousand volumes.
The interior wood finish, of which there is very little, and the floors, are of brown ash. The ceilings are painted a low tone of blue, the walls a pale myrtle, and the pilasters, mouldings and cornices soft tones of brown. The effect is quiet and agreeable. The book-cases and furniture are of ash and black walnut. The shelves of pine, faced with black walnut.
A central portion of the main floor is separated from the rest by a black walnut railing, providing a waiting room for book borrowers. At its right is the librarian’s desk and the book delivery. This northerly end of the room is shelved and specially appropriated to the lending department of the library. That on the southerly end being arranged for books of reference, and other books not belonging to the lending department, and provided with tables and conveniences for students and others wishing to consult books, or to read on the premises.
The reading room for the general public is a handsome, well lighted, airy room measuring twenty-four by sixteen feet. It is situated on the south side of the corridor, and its approach is from it and in view from the librarian’s desk in the main room.
Great care has been taken to combine the best modern ideas for securing safety to the contents, and convenience for the administration of a public library.
The foundations and walls are of the most substantial character. All party walls are of brick and rise to the roof. Those of the exterior are built with air spaces, to secure uniformity of temperature, and to guard against moisture. Lathing is not used on the walls, but a rough stone finish lies directly upon the brick.
The book-cases and shelves are not placed in contact with the walls but are protected by air spaces on all sides.
The furniture and fixtures are of the very best character, and in quiet good taste. The building is to be heated by furnaces, and lighted with gas.
The architects of the building are Messrs. Snell & Gregerson, of Boston.
Concord, Sept. 30, 1873.