DE ARCHITECTS
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S-493
year 1947-1949
source title A+U 631 Alvar Aalto - Library Landscapes
info Woodberry Poetry Room houses an audio library created in 1931 by Harvard professor Frederick C. Packard Jr. He dreamed of creating a vocarium, that is “a place where voices can be kept and studied.” With its extensive collection of audio recordings and publications, the space has been characterized as the home of modern poetry. Designed jointly by Alvar and Aino Aalto, Woodberry Poetry Room comprises a reading room for the speical collection and a librarian’s office. Most of the reading and lending room space was reserved for 4 octogonal tables intended for record players, so students could sit and listen to recordings. Acoustic cladding consisting of beech battens was placed above the shelves. The tables, chairs, and armchiars, as well as the lamps, were ordered from Artek. The furniture was made in Sweden, where Artek moved its production in the late 1940s, due to material shortages during the postwar years. Significant design details in the room include a wooden grille screen and the lamps. A bespoke spherical perforated metal lamp illuminates the entrance, with shelf lamps designed for the space. Suspended above the reading and record tables are Aalto’s Golden Bell lamps, while the floor lamps offer direct light. The room was desinged especially for listening to poetry, and it draws its ambience from the warm hues of wood, the shine of brass, and the custom furniture. The library remians in active use, its most significnat change came in the 2000s, when the listening tables were converted to tables for reading.
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year 1947-1949
source title A+U 631 Alvar Aalto - Library Landscapes
info Woodberry Poetry Room houses an audio library created in 1931 by Harvard professor Frederick C. Packard Jr. He dreamed of creating a vocarium, that is “a place where voices can be kept and studied.” With its extensive collection of audio recordings and publications, the space has been characterized as the home of modern poetry. Designed jointly by Alvar and Aino Aalto, Woodberry Poetry Room comprises a reading room for the speical collection and a librarian’s office. Most of the reading and lending room space was reserved for 4 octogonal tables intended for record players, so students could sit and listen to recordings. Acoustic cladding consisting of beech battens was placed above the shelves. The tables, chairs, and armchiars, as well as the lamps, were ordered from Artek. The furniture was made in Sweden, where Artek moved its production in the late 1940s, due to material shortages during the postwar years. Significant design details in the room include a wooden grille screen and the lamps. A bespoke spherical perforated metal lamp illuminates the entrance, with shelf lamps designed for the space. Suspended above the reading and record tables are Aalto’s Golden Bell lamps, while the floor lamps offer direct light. The room was desinged especially for listening to poetry, and it draws its ambience from the warm hues of wood, the shine of brass, and the custom furniture. The library remians in active use, its most significnat change came in the 2000s, when the listening tables were converted to tables for reading.
read more
