Dr. Seuss's Library

photo from UCSanDiego website

Between the news of library closings and the wretched, blowing snow I had just about enough of the East Coast today and decided to head to sunny San Diego to see Dr. Seuss.  Well, not exactly Dr. Seuss but his library at the University of California.  The Geisel Library is not a building that you could walk by without knowing it; imagine a mirrored space ship landing in a garden,  just about to lower the gangplank and you’ll have a good idea of what it looks like.  Its creative, imaginative design is a perfect tribute to Dr. Seuss.  
But the building wasn’t designed for or named after Theodore Geisel until 1995.   It began life as the ‘Central Library’ and was designed by William Perriera in the late 1960s.  The 8 story design is an example of Brutalism (with a name like that you know it can’t be pretty), which is a term for the kind of architecture that I find particularly unappealing.  Alison and Peter Smithson created the term Brutalism in the 50s for buildings that were created with raw concrete ‘beton brut’, or poured concrete in the style of Le Corbusier.  There are not many materials that I find less appealing than poured concrete (maybe sheet metal) and I find it particularly disturbing when used for a library. However, it seems that many Colleges and University disagree or are swayed by its affordability. Even the beautiful, historic campus of McGill University, my alma mater, had a library molded from the stuff that I spent many hours in, staring out the small window strips.  
I also have rather unpleasant memories of a massive concrete structure, surrounded by a concrete plazas and parking lots at the Community College of Rhode Island that I think served as the entire campus.  Shudder.
The exposed structure and geometric appearance of The Geisel Library classify it as brutalist and give it a unique science fiction appearance.  Not too many library have film credits but the Geisel library has appeared in the TV shows ‘Simon & Simon’ and ‘Mission Impossible’ and was portrayed as a snow fortress in the 2010 film ‘Inception’.  The whimsical entryway of the library was designed by Baldessari and the words “Read, Write, Think, Dream” are etched about the colorful doors (reminiscent of Carnegie’s inspirational quotes and grand library entrances).
The Mandeville Special Collections at the library is home to Dr. Seuss’s drawings, notebooks and artifacts.  The collection is extremely fragile and only available with special permission.  Items are on display during Seuss’s birthday month and in the summer.   Audrey Geisel, Seuss’s widow, made a sizable donation to support the libraries four years after Seuss’s death, which, coincidentally, is when the library was renamed “The Geisel Library”.
The library actually has an entire webpage dedicated to popular myths about the library - apparently it is a place that inspires creative thinking.  I was relieved to discover that the building is not sinking due to the weight of the books nor did it appear on an episode of Star Trek.
On the website Brian Schottlaender, University Librarian, recalls a story from Audrey Geisel about seeing the building for the first time...
"remember, in those days this building was much more isolated than it is now; it literally rose up out of the ground. As Audrey recalls, Ted said, “Wow! If I were an architect, that’s the library that I would build.” And so when Ted passed away, Audrey decided that this would be Ted’s library."