On January 27th, Avery Library welcomed students from the Spring 2016 Core Architecture Studio II in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. This semester, the required studio explores the “architectural form and identity of a 21st-century library” as well as trends in architectural representation.

Avery Classics presented a selection of books that a traced the use of section drawings from the Renaissance through to the 21st century. Students viewed numerous examples ranging from the first printed architectural drawing – a perspectival section through a round temple of Venus – in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499) to Pierre Patte’s groundbreaking section of a town street showing sewers and water supplies in addition to the buildings flanking the thoroughfare (1749). The session culminated in Olafur Elliasson’s innovative laser-cut volume reproducing his own house in Copenhagen through a series of vertical cross-sections at a scale of 85:1.

In Drawings and Archives, the students saw an overview of library designs from Carrère & Hastings’s masterpiece, the New York Public Library at 42nd Street to the sleek modernism of Harrison and Abramovitz’s Library for the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University. Charles Platt’s library for the University of Illinois was included, featuring stunning section and detail drawings of this Georgian style library. Capping the group were several drawings by Frank Lloyd Wright for the Roux Library at Florida Southern College. The drawings were selected to highlight the transition of space within the libraries.