RESTORATION AND EXPANSION: A rendering of the design by Kimmel Bogrette Archi-tecture + Site for the Historical Studies-Social Science Library at the Institute for Advanced Study. (Illustration courtesy of Kimmel Bogrette)

By Anne Levin

At a special meeting on Thursday evening, October 24, the Princeton Planning Board is scheduled to consider a proposal by the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) to add a second level to its existing main library.

Designed by architecture firm Harrison & Abramovitz and dedicated in 1965, the modernist library was built at the request of former IAS Director J. Robert Oppenheimer. Wallace K. Harrison was known for his work on New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House, Rockefeller Center, and the United Nations building. He also designed Jasna Polana, the estate of J. Seward Johnson and his wife, Barbara Piasecka Johnson, on Route 206.

While praised in its early years, specifically for the way its roof lets in light, the building has suffered from a growing series of leaks over the years. The expansion project addresses the leaks as well as “providing new spaces where scholars can collaborate and share ideas,” reads a release from the IAS issued last May. “It will also create additional office space for the Institute’s renowned scholars, including some who now must work in temporary structures.”

Kimmel Bogrette Architecture + Site of Blue Bell, Pa., are the architects for the current project, which is estimated to be completed in 2027. In addition to expanding and revitalizing the space for scholars, it is designed to preserve significant collections, including rare books and manuscripts.

“For a place dedicated to discovery, there is nothing more important than preserving what we know, and providing the kinds of spaces necessary for the possibilities of thought and the advancement of knowledge,” said IAS Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg in the release. “The Library restoration and expansion will provide our faculty and members with an environment in which they can explore the intellectual frontiers of both established and emerging fields.”

There was some resistance to the plan after it was announced last year, particularly to the enclosure of the original roof. “The approach navigates away from Harrison’s glass-heavy modernism, instead offering a massing that hangs over the ground level,” reads a June 6, 2023 article published in The Architect’s Newspaper. “The addition, as designed, would eliminate the lighting conditions of Harrison’s original building.”

The IAS was quoted as saying that the roof’s problems threatened the library’s collections, and that it had been advised that a direct replacement was not viable given the local climate.

A letter signed by many current and former IAS faculty members and quoted in The Architect’s Newspaper criticized Kimmel Bogrette’s approach as “assembling all the clichés of commercial architecture as if it were generated by a computer. It is as bulky and obtrusive as Harrison’s gem is delicate and discreet.”

Institute spokesperson Lee Sandberg said that to advance the plan to preserve and expand the library while protecting collections at risk, “the Institute engaged architectural advisor Frances Halsband, a founding partner of Kliment Halsband Architects whose work is widely recognized for preservation, adaptive reuse, and master planning, to help guide our design approach. The current designs reflect this guidance and represent a substantial evolution of earlier design concepts.”

Halsband dates the idea for a new library to the late 1950s.

“A committee was formed in 1957 and architects were contacted, including Richard Neutra, Louis Kahn, Edward Barnes, and Robert Venturi,” she wrote. “Marcel Breuer, who had just completed the Institute’s member housing, made a proposal but it was rejected. Princeton architect Kenneth Stone Kassler proposed an underground building, which was also rejected.”

Harrison had recently completed Oppenheimer’s beach house in the Virgin Islands. He was approached, and accepted the commission. It took until 1962 for a design to be approved. While Oppenheimer proposed a second floor as a means to provide future flexibility, there were no funds for it at the time.

In her conclusion, Halsband writes that climate change makes the project an urgent one. The project as proposed “will make the library significantly more efficient and environmentally sustainable, substantially reducing heat loss, cooling needs, and nighttime light pollution,” reads the release. “By expanding without enlarging the building’s footprint, it will also help the Institute to steward its renowned grounds, which are important not only to the IAS community but also to neighbors and the larger Princeton community.”

The Planning Board meeting, which is on Zoom, begins at 7 p.m. Visit princetonnj.gov for the link.