Been there, cherished that
From Vent #226, 25 December 2000, incorporating a memory from 1973:
The old Boston Public Library scowled down on Copley Square, and the interior, all rosewood walls and gooseneck lamps and murals, was a scary sort of place for a kid away from home. And around the corner was the library’s annex, which struck me at the time as a domestic version of those modern soulless bunkers you’d see housing the proletariat in Eastern Europe. In between was a courtyard, seemingly miles, even years, away from the noises on Boylston Street, stuck in the Twilight Zone between the old and the new. I was twenty years old and very uneasy about everything, but here, for a few moments each weekend, I found a measure of peace.
If you saw that and wondered what that peaceful place might look like today, Blair Humphreys will show you. It hasn’t changed all that much, and I’m happy to see that it hasn’t.
Blair »
25 September 2008 · 12:23 am
Hey Mr. Hill. I really like your description of the courtyard – it is truly a peaceful place and one I enjoy visiting myself. Hope the pictures were able to take you back. I will be photographing the courtyard and library more throughout the semester and will let you know when I have more to see.
Thank you.
Tat »
25 September 2008 · 7:15 am
“Between the old and the new”?
Italianate courtyard, built to resemble Renaissance Florence, is much older in style that Mission gooseneck lamps.
The light of the “twilight zone” comes straight from 14th century.
CGHill »
25 September 2008 · 7:38 am
The Zone is such because it’s a buffer between the old traditionalist library and the suburban train station serving as its annex: while the courtyard’s individual virtues are considerable, and obvious, what mattered to me was the fact that it stood athwart this tiny stretch of history and whispered “Stop here for a moment.”
Tatyana »
25 September 2008 · 9:29 am
Of course it does – precisely because of its classical form. It’s balanced, it’s harmonious, it’s symmetrical: the design is intended to spell “peace and quiet” since Ancient Greeks. The colors are light, contrast is not sharp, columns are tall, it’s filled with air and elevation of spirit.
It’s timeless.
What you call “traditionalist” came much later. Even as an inspiration for the Mission style the paneling, the low ceilings, the dark saturated colors came in Middle Ages, along with self-flagellating tendencies of Christian faith.
I don’t doubt for a second that courtyard provided a relief, a resting place for your disturbed spirit – but not because it was in between old and new. It was because it is a reminder of even older times that the “traditionalist” library – times of free-spirited and harmonious antiquity.