As Harold Washington Library nears 35, officials seek new chapter for the institution

For most of its 34-year existence, the Harold Washington Library Center has been like a runner trapped between third base and home: A great advance, but not quite a score.

The city's main library, 400 S. State St., helped revive the South Loop — something for which the building doesn't nearly get enough credit.

And the top floor winter garden is one of the city's best interior spaces, with its courtyard-like design that's awash in natural light courtesy of a glass paneled domed ceiling.

Among its faults, the library has always seemed to be on the defense, from its windowless ground floor to a design that forces patrons to walk what feels like a mile of first floor hallways and negotiate a cold-looking and cavernous main lobby before being able to lay eyes on a book.

The city — the world — is a lot different than it was when the building opened in 1991. People now use libraries in a wider range of ways. And the South Loop is developing into a neighborhood of colleges, dormitories, residential conversions and restaurants.

Can the Harold Washington Library's programming and design adapt change also?

Chicago Public Library officials, consultants and stakeholders have been pondering that question this spring and summer, in a series of meetings seeking ideas to improve the building's design and patrons' experience.

"We have the largest central library in the country in Chicago," Chicago Public Library Commissioner Chris Brown said. "And as you know, it's over 30 years [old]. It was built pre-internet ... built for a different time. So we're out of the pandemic, as we're looking at how the Loop is being utilized, we want to have this building continue to serve the city as best as it can."

A cafe — and tech improvements

The exercise, led by library officials, the nonprofit Civic Consulting Alliance and Blue Cottage — the consultancy arm of architecture firm CannonDesign, is the first significant reexamination of the building since its construction.

The focus groups have come up with range of ideas aimed at bringing more activity and uses to the library, including expanding the third floor computer room so it provides instruction for emerging technologies and putting a cafe in the winter garden.

"On average, people are staying here for well over an hour," Brown said. "[A cafe] would just incentivize their time in that space ... give people more incentive while they're in that space to do their school work or just be. I think that would be a real win."

The group also liked the idea of activating the interior spaces next to library's few ground floor windows. The move would create a needed dialogue between the inside of the building and the sidewalk life outside.

And what about that hike patrons have to take before encountering a book? Brown said the group has talked about adding portions of the library's collection to those spaces.

Blue Cottage Consulting Principal Chris Lambert said one proposal was a permanent exhibition on the life of Mayor Harold Washington, who died months before the start of the 1987 competition to build and design the library, and other Chicago-related items could be relocated into a new climate-controlled site within the building.

"We also think there's an opportunity here — if we position this in the right way — it becomes a showpiece," Lambert said. "It becomes a thing that celebrates Chicago's history in a real vibrant way."

It was the talk of the town back in 1987, when Washington announced an international competition to select a team that could design and build a new main public library. So much so, the PBS program "Nova" devoted an episode — one of its best — to the scramble to create and select a winning design.

The design competition was seen as Chicago getting back its groove as an architectural leader. The flashy State of Illinois building had opened just two years before. Could the new library be the next step?

Chicagoans could vote — non-binding, of course — on their favorite design.

Five finalists were selected, with the nod going to the SEBUS Group, a team featuring Chicago architecture firm Hammond, Beeby & Babka.

With looks more inspired by post-fire Chicago than the approaching 21st century, the library's design took a fair bit of flak. In my relative youth back then, I thought the building's ersatz 1890s architecture seemed as authentically Chicago as the Old Chicago Amusement Park dome.

Looking at it now, Hammond, Beeby & Babka's solution was the best entry among the finalists. It gave the city a library that honors Chicago's architectural past while being hefty enough to hold its own along the wide Ida B. Wells Drive and next to the historic former flagship Sears department store at 401 S. State St.

Besides, the library is only 19th century on three sides. The building's less-visible Plymouth Court facade is predominantly a glass curtain wall so sharp and tight, Alfred Hitchcock could've run the opening credits of "North by Northwest” across it.

None of the library's architecture would be significantly changed under the measures discussed by the group. Brown said creating thematic links between the library and the adjacent L stop and whatever happens at Pritzker Park could also occur.

All of this takes money. Lots of it. Brown said the next steps include turning those ideas and recommendations into a document that can be presented to Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration. And to the local and national philanthropic community as well.

As libraries remain under attack, protecting and improving them is a civic good and public necessity.