Copied below is a letter to the editor submitted to the Delaware State News. You can post your opinions by clicking on "Reply."
Prediction: Thirty years from now, when people pass through Dover and look upon the Dover Anchor Library, they will ask, “What in the world were they thinking?”
What, indeed!
We have been quietly patient, hoping for the best. After all, as residents of Dover, we know we need a new, larger library, and it is $21 million dollars we are spending. But, now that the result is clear, we cannot let our silence be construed as approval. In fact, we are keenly disappointed.
Three years ago, while the building was still in the drawing and planning stages, we voiced concern over the design. We spoke at a public meeting, and wrote letters to the architects, to the library administration and the news media imploring them in a positive way to create a building that truly reflects its surroundings and takes into account the heritage that permeates and distinguishes central-Dover architecture. We asked questions and offered suggestions. The architects, Holzman and Moss, went through all of the motions and – to read their self-congratulatory description posted online – now claim to have achieved “a testament to the City ofDover’s history and tradition,” incorporating “the same proportion, materials and roof profiles that reference nearby historic structures … .”
Are they serious?
What tradition? What history? They have created an architectural monstrosity that appears to have been sired by many nameless fathers, none of whom claim the whelp! Oversized in many of its elements (see the end-piece “chimneys”), it is a hodge-podge that in no way relates – save the use of some brick – to its surroundings. It is a building that fights with itself. What IS that “special shape” in the front, that oval? We asked the architect what unifying element the appendage had in common with the rest of the building. To our great surprise and without blinking, he said, “None.” What? To claim it is “colonial” because someone was able to unearth the oval ceiling decoration of an Early American room is absurd. Why piers of brick? Why piers of figured tin? What did they do at Holzman Moss – decide one day to sweep up all of the rejections that had fallen to the floor, paste them together and call it the Dover Anchor Library?
The building looks like it was made from leftovers. Not enough of one kind of brick? No problem – use three kinds that have no relationship to each other. Tell the rubes inDoverthat the building represents diversity or variety or something. In fact, pile on at least six different surface textures for the building (seven if you include the glass). But then, they put the same high-contrast multicolored tile on the roof and sides of the so-called “dormers” (read: skylights). A little unity there. Must have had a fire sale on that stuff. Why? Good grief! And what is going on with all of the different top-edge treatments? Too much variety becomes confusion, visual noise. This is supposed to be architecture, not couture. The current fashion in clothing, “everything and anything goes,” does not transfer kindly to the most stable and enduring of art forms. Are we not building for the ages?
We should have known there would be problems when the model of the “special shape” looked like a second-grade cutout, rough cardboard and all. But then, the artist’s rendition we were sold barely reflects what has become overgrown at the east end of Loockerman. Where are the small-pane windows? Where are the horizontal tops to the insets and so-called “dormers?” Where is the stone on the end-pieces? And now, we know why they hid most of the “special shape” behind cars and foliage in the artist rendition. Frankly, there’s not enough traffic or tree cover to hide what it has become. What are those angles on top of the piers? They weren’t in the picture. If their antecedents are the broken pediments of Georgian doorway architecture, kindly remember that, over a door, they rise to an implied convergence; they don’t explode out. Please, check the images on the architect’s signs before they come down. And, if you think the south side of the building is a mess, wait until you see the north: glass enclosures that make no sense except on a building that is devoid of any architectural style. Photos of the interior are just as depressing.
Those of you who chided us for wanting a building that has a reasonable “conversation” with its surroundings – that displays unity and complements its neighbors by honoring our colonial heritage – certainly have gotten your wish. No one will ever accuse this huge $21 million-dollar “Frankenbrary” of being anything close to colonial or beautiful. (Did anyone on the approving committees have even a modicum of artistic training or sense beyond choosing from Lowe’s color swatches?) Approaching downtown from the east, one is struck by the charm and grace of the skyline on the left. Then you see the library, which looks like an out-of-place badly designed factory with something from outer space sucking on its façade (even the old Richardson-Robbins factory on King’s Highway has more style). What an embarrassment.
Folks, we had the chance to inspire. Instead, we degraded. Sad.
Prediction: Even the architects will abandon claim to paternity. (Someone really should have used a prophylactic.)
Sallie and Eddy Seger
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