Woburn's Woes

Photo from the SciWoburn Website

It was a happy afternoon when I discovered that H.H. Richardson had designed not one but FOUR fantastic libraries around Boston in the 1880s.  After checking out the Ames Free Library in Easton I headed to Woburn, about 10 miles north of Boston on Route 93.  The library does not disappoint.  Seated on a spacious hill, the rugged red and cream limestone blocks create a imposing structure that is at once serious and welcoming.  The Woburn Library  is  grander in scale than it’s cousin in Easton but they are irrefutably related.  Woburn was actually Richardson’s first library of the series and he pulled out all the stops - rows of arched windows, a 78 ft. tower and an octagonal exhibition room with his signature arched entryway.  All elements these elements came to be know at Richardsonian Romanesque.
The town’s library legacy began way back in 1853 when Jonathon Bowers Winn, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention,  challenged the town of  Woburn to start a library after hearing about Boston’s plan for a public facility.  A free circulating library, housed in the town hall, did open to the public in 1856 but it wasn’t until the 1870s that Charles Winn (Jonathan’s son) left $140,000 for a dedicated building.  According to the library’s history, Charles wanted his generous gift to create a building that would be a “architectural ornament” for the town.  He certainly got his money’s worth when H.H. Richardson was declared the winner of the library design competition in 1877 (the same year that Richardson was hired to build the Ames Library).
Kenneth Breisch wrote a  whole book about Richardson’s libraries entitled Henry Hobson Richardson and the Small Public Library in America that offers a detailed account and analysis of each of the projects and their role in American society.  
The cool part about the Woburn story is that there was another library design competition held 129 years after Richardson won his contest.  The second competition was held in 2008 to generate ideas for an expansion project.  As massive as the Woburn Library appears, the space was not designed for 21st century technology nor does it offer the space for the library’s expanded collection and children’s room, it was time to grow .  The contest was for the best expansion idea (but not necessary the commission) that would work with Richardson’s design.   The winning design,  choosen from 100 entries, came from Lacina Heitler Architects, New York, NY (Design Team: Josh Heitler, Brian Cuff, Doug Houstoun, Marina Yu, Ed Rojas, Kevin Denlinger and Aaron Whitney).  
But here’s the kicker, Charles Winn isn’t around to finance the project and no one else seems to be jumping in to take his place.  According to Linda Kush, and the Gatehouse News Service, the Library Board and the City Council met last month and agreed to disagree on how much the city should (and can) contribute.  The Library Board is asking for $16.6 million and the Mayor is offerring $5.5 - that is quite a gap.  The actual cost of the addition is $24.4 million but $7.7 million will be covered by a grant from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners and private donors.
Until they reach a compromise, Woburn Library patrons will have to live with overflowing shelves, a children’s room in the basement and the great beauty of H.H. Richardson’s design.