Fisher Fine Arts Library

{{Short description|Academic library in Pennsylvania, US}} {{Use American English|date=January 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=August 2023}} {{Infobox building | name = Anne and Jerome Fisher Fine Arts Library | image = Fisher Fine Arts Library - UPenn (53590493459).jpg | image_size = 250px | image_alt = The 4-story Main Reading Room acts as a lightwell for the inner rooms surrounding it. | image_caption = Fisher Fine Arts Library in March 2024 | pushpin_relief = | former_names = Furness Library, Furness Building | alternate_names = | etymology = | status = | building_type = Library | architectural_style = Venetian Gothic | classification = | location = University City | address = 220 South 34th Street<br>Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | coordinates = | altitude = | current_tenants = | namesake = Anne and Jerome Fisher | opened_date = {{Start date|1890}} | renovation_date = 1986-1991 | cost = | ren_cost = | client = | owner = University of Pennsylvania | landlord = | affiliation = | height = | architectural = | tip = | roof = | top_floor = | observatory = | diameter = | weight = | other_dimensions = | structural_system = | material = Sandstone, brick, terracotta | size = {{convert|65026|sqft}} | floor_count = 8 | floor_area = | elevator_count = | grounds_area = | architect = Frank Furness | architecture_firm = Furness, Evans & Company | developer = | engineer = | structural_engineer = | services_engineer = | civil_engineer = | other_designers = | quantity_surveyor = | main_contractor = | awards = | designations = | known_for = | ren_architect = | ren_firm = Venturi, Raunch, Scott, Brown and Associates | ren_engineer = | ren_str_engineer = | ren_serv_engineer = | ren_civ_engineer = | ren_oth_designers = | ren_qty_surveyor = | ren_contractor = | ren_awards = | number_of_rooms = | parking = | website =  | embed = | embedded = {{Infobox NRHP | name = Fine Arts Library (Furness Library), University of Pennsylvania | nrhp_type = nhl | nrhp_type2 = cp | nocat = yes | image = | caption = | location = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. | locmapin = Philadelphia#Pennsylvania#USA | area = {{convert|116000|sqft}}<ref name="nrhpinv2"/> | built = 1888-91 | architect = Frank Furness;<br>Furness, Evans, & Co. | architecture = Venetian Gothic, Victorian | designated_nrhp_type = February 4, 1985<ref name="nhlsum">{{cite web |url=http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1267&ResourceType=Building |title=Furness Library, School of Fine Arts, University of Pennsylvania |access-date=2008-07-03 |work=National Historic Landmark summary listing |publisher=National Park Service |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121008031231/http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1267&ResourceType=Building |archive-date=2012-10-08 }}</ref> | added = May 19, 1972<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|2007a}}</ref> | refnum = 72001154 | coordinates = {{coord|39|57|05|N|75|11|33|W|display=inline,title}} }} | references = | footnotes = }}

The '''Fisher Fine Arts Library''' was the primary library of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia from 1891 to 1962. The red sandstone, brick-and-terra-cotta Venetian Gothic giant, part fortress and part cathedral, was designed by Philadelphia architect Frank Furness (1839–1912).<ref name=nrhpdoc>{{cite report|type=none|url=https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71997280 |title=National Register of Historic Places Registration: Pennsylvania SP Furness Library|publisher=National Archives and Records Administration |author= Carolyn Pitts|date= August 10, 1984| access-date=January 8, 2026 }} ({{NationalArchivesNote}})</ref>

==History== The cornerstone was laid in October 1888, construction was completed in late 1890, and the building was dedicated in February 1891.<ref>[http://uchs.net/HistoricDistricts/furness.html Applications for Historical Landmark Status] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729081956/http://uchs.net/HistoricDistricts/furness.html |date=July 29, 2020 }} Accessed July 20, 2007</ref>

Following completion of the Van Pelt Library in 1962, it was renamed the '''Furness Building''' (after its architect), and housed the university's art and architecture collections. The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1985.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://npgallery.nps.gov/nrhp/AssetDetail?assetID=8ca1cbaa-5ab9-4094-97e2-fce8f6ccedeb|title=Asset Detail|website=focus.nps.gov|access-date=2 February 2018}}</ref>

The Furness Building was renamed the '''Anne and Jerome Fisher Fine Arts Library''' following a six-year, $16.5-million restoration, completed in 1991.<ref name="PAB"/> It is located on the east side of College Green, at Locust Walk and 34th Street.

==Design== {{multiple image | align = right | direction = vertical | image1 = University of Pennsylvania Library 1904 Detroit Publishing Co.jpg | width1 = 170 | caption1 = The glass-roofed book stacks (right) were designed to be continuously expanded. | image2 = Proceedings at the Opening of the University of Pennsylvania Library 1891.jpg | width2 = 170 | caption2 = Main floor plan (1891). }} The library's plan is exceptionally innovative: circulation to the building's five stories is through the tower's staircase, separated from the reading rooms and stacks.

The Main Reading Room is a soaring four-story brick-and-terra-cotta-enclosed space, divided by an arcade from the two-story Rotunda Reading Room. The latter has a basilica plan – with seminar rooms grouped around an apse (like side-chapels) – the entire space lighted by clerestory windows. Above the Rotunda Reading Room is a two-story lecture hall, now an architecture studio. The Main Reading Room, with its enormous skylight and wall of south-facing windows, acts as a lightwell, illuminating the surrounding inner rooms through leaded glass windows.

The three-story fireproof stacks are housed in a modular iron wing, with a glass roof and glass-block floors to help light the lower levels. It was designed to initially hold 100,000 books – but also to be continuously expandable, one bay at a time, with a movable south wall. Furness's perspective drawing highlighted this growth potential by showing nine-bay stacks,<ref>[http://www.design.upenn.edu/archives/majorcollections/furness/ff-library.html Elevation and perspective drawing] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080610113322/http://www.design.upenn.edu/archives/majorcollections/furness/ff-library.html |date=2008-06-10 }} from Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania</ref> although the initial three-bay stacks were never expanded.

Throughout the building are windows inscribed with quotations from Shakespeare, chosen by Horace Howard Furness (Frank's older brother), a University lecturer and a preeminent American Shakespearean scholar of the 19th century. The architect collaborated with Melvil Dewey, creator of the Dewey Decimal System, and others to make this the most modern American library building of its time.<ref>Edward R. Bosley, ''University of Pennsylvania Library'' (London: Phaidon Press, 1996), pp. 17-22.</ref>

{{cquote|"The plans I sketched with Mr. Furness late that evening, seem to me better than any college library has yet adopted." — Melvil Dewey.<ref>Melvil Dewey to Provost William Pepper, 20 April 1887, University of Pennsylvania Archives.</ref>}}

The Henry Charles Lea Library, a two-story addition to the building's east side, was designed by Furness, Evans & Company and completed in 1905.<ref name="PAB">[https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab/app/pj_display_alldates.cfm/20396 Anne and Jerome Fisher Fine Arts Library - Chronology] from Philadelphia Architects and Buildings.</ref>

==Rejection== Within a generation, Frank Furness's exuberant masterwork was considered an embarrassment. The University Museum moved to its own building in 1899. In 1915, the Duhring Wing was built at the south end of the stacks, making their designed expansion impossible.<ref>[https://www.facilities.upenn.edu/maps/locations/duhring-wing Duhring Wing], from University of Pennsylvania.</ref> Architect Robert Rodes McGoodwin drew up plans to cloak the entire building in sedate Collegiate Gothic brick and stone.<ref>[https://www.philadelphiabuildings.org/pab-images/medium-display/aaup.195.cd1/aaup.195.19.1.jpg Proposed alterations to University of Pennsylvania Library (1931)] from University of Pennsylvania Architectural Archives.</ref> The first step toward this was the 1931 addition of a reading room facing College Green (now the Arthur Ross Gallery) that masked the iron-and-glass stacks.<ref>[http://www.arthurrossgallery.org/ Arthur Ross Gallery] from University of Pennsylvania.</ref> Almost perversely, McGoodwin's incongruous Collegiate Gothic addition was dedicated as a memorial to Horace Howard Furness; H. H. Furness's Shakespeare home library was housed in the addition before being moved to Van Pelt Library. A garden with plants found in Shakespeare's works was grown in front of the addition.<ref name="Bosley, p. 60">Bosley, p. 60.</ref>

The building served as the main library of the University of Pennsylvania until the construction of Van Pelt Library in 1962. Today it houses collections related to architecture, landscape architecture, city and regional planning, historic preservation, history of art, and studio arts.

==Belated appreciation== In 1957, Penn-trained architect and ''Philadelphia Bulletin'' cartoonist Alfred Bendiner invited Frank Lloyd Wright to tour the Victorian behemoth, then threatened with demolition. Wright proclaimed, "It is the work of an artist."<ref>Alfred Bendiner, ''Bendiner's Philadelphia'' (New York: A.S. Barnes & Company, 1964), pp. 40-41. [http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/v46/n05/octcalpicts.html Bendiner cartoon] from Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania</ref>

The Furness Library was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972;<ref name="nris"/> was additionally listed as a contributing property in the University of Pennsylvania Campus Historic District in 1978; and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1985.<ref name="nrhpinv2">{{Cite web |title=National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Furness Library, School of the Fine Arts, University of Pennsylvania|url={{NHLS url|id=72001154}} |format=pdf|date=1984-08-10 |author=Carolyn Pitts |publisher=National Park Service}} and {{NHLS url|id=72001154|title=''Accompanying four photos from 1964''|photos=y}} {{small|(32 KB)}}</ref><ref name="nhlsum"/>

Between 1986 and 1991, the building was restored by a team that included Venturi, Rauch, Scott Brown & Associates, Inc., CLIO Group, Inc., and Marianna Thomas Architects.<ref>[http://www.design.upenn.edu/archives/majorcollections/furness/ff-library2.html Restoration drawings] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090107042331/http://www.design.upenn.edu/archives/majorcollections/furness/ff-library2.html |date=2009-01-07 }} from Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania</ref><ref name=vsba>{{cite web|title=Restoration of the Furness Building/Fisher Fine Arts Library, University of Pennsylvania|url=https://venturiscottbrown.org/pdfs/UniversityofPennsylvaniaFisherFineArtsLibrary01.pdf|publisher=Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates|access-date=December 12, 2013}}</ref> On the occasion of its centennial in February 1991, it was rededicated as the "Anne & Jerome Fisher Fine Arts Library" (named for the restoration's primary benefactors). The $16.5-million restoration garnered rave reviews from ''New York Times'' architectural critic Paul Goldberger,<ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEEDB1631F931A35755C0A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all Paul Goldberger, "In Philadelphia, a Victorian Extravaganza Lives," ''The New York Times'', June 2, 1991.]</ref> and received national awards from the Victorian Society in America (1991), the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (1992), and the American Institute of Architects (1993).<ref name="Bosley, p. 60"/>

The restored building was featured prominently in the 1993 film ''Philadelphia''.

In a 2009 appreciation in ''The Wall Street Journal'', architectural historian Michael J. Lewis called it "a cheeky act of architectural impertinence" and "the last of its kind": "Today, the University of Pennsylvania building, now known as the Fisher Fine Arts Library, is widely acknowledged as one of the great creations of 19th-century American culture, and the principal work of its architect, Frank Furness (1839-1912)."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704402404574526080260245184#articleTabs%3Dcomments |first=Michael J. |last=Lewis |title=This Library Speaks Volumes |website=The Wall Street Journal |date=November 14, 2009 |access-date=April 29, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141222202058/https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704402404574526080260245184 |archive-date=December 22, 2014}}</ref>

==Arthur Ross Gallery== Horace Howard Furness's collection of Shakespeare was moved to Van Pelt Library in the 1960s. The former Furness Reading Room was converted into the Arthur Ross Gallery, which houses the university's art collection. Opened in 1983,<ref>{{cite web|title=History|url=https://www.arthurrossgallery.org/about/history/|publisher=Arthur Ross Gallery|access-date=21 December 2014}}</ref> the gallery is named for its benefactor, noted philanthropist Arthur Ross, who started his college studies at the University of Pennsylvania, but later transferred to Columbia University.<ref name=nyt>{{cite news |first=Douglas|last=Martin|title= Arthur Ross, Investor and Philanthropist Who Left Mark on the Park, Dies at 96 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/nyregion/11ross.html?_r=1&oref=slogin|work=New York Times|date=2007-09-11 |access-date=2014-12-21}}</ref> Admission to the public is free.

==Gallery== <gallery mode=packed heights="140"> File:FisherLibrary.JPG|Arthur Ross Gallery (1931), right, and Duhring Wing (1915), far right. File:Furness Lib gargoyle UPenn.JPG|Gargoyles. File:Penn campus 5.jpg|Lantern of the porch and the leaded glass fanlight. File:Details of Apse, Furness Library, Univ. of Pennsylvania.jpg File:Furness Lib east side 1 UPenn.JPG|Henry Charles Lea Library bay window File:Furness Lib interior looking N UPenn.JPG </gallery>

==References== {{reflist|33em}}

==External links== {{commons category|Fisher Fine Arts Library}} *[https://www.library.upenn.edu/finearts/ Official Site] *[http://www.arthurrossgallery.org/ Arthur Ross Gallery] *{{HABS |survey=PA-1644 |id=pa0675 |title=University of Pennsylvania, Furness Building |photos=10 |cap=1}} *[http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/47677841/ Furness Fine Arts Building in Winter]

{{Penn}} {{NHLs in PA}} {{National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania}} {{Frank Furness}} {{Authority control}}

Category:Library buildings completed in 1891 Category:Libraries on the National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia Category:University of Pennsylvania buildings and structures Category:University and college academic libraries in the United States Category:National Historic Landmarks in Philadelphia Category:Frank Furness buildings Category:Historic American Buildings Survey in Philadelphia Category:1891 establishments in Pennsylvania Category:University and college buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Category:Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Pennsylvania Category:Visual arts libraries in the United States