Jonathan Bourne Public Library
| Jonathan Bourne Public Library | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| National Register of Historic Places | |||
 The building in 1899 |
|||
|
|||
| location | Bourne , Massachusetts , United States | ||
| Coordinates | 41 ° 44 '38.4 " N , 70 ° 35' 45.1" W | ||
| surface | 0.75 acres (0.3 ha ) | ||
| Built | 1896 | ||
| architect | Henry Vaughan | ||
| Architectural style | Colonial Revival | ||
| NRHP number | [1] 12001168 | ||
| The NRHP added | January 14, 2013 | ||
The Jonathan Bourne Public Library is the current location of the Jonathan Bourne Historical Center on the National Register of Historic Places . The building is located in the center of Bourne in the state of Massachusetts of the United States . The library itself moved to the nearby Bourne Grammar School building in 1984 .
description
The former of the Jonathan Bourne Public Library building is located at the address 30 Keene Street about 180 ft (54.9 m ) away from the road on a roughly 0.75 acres (0.3 hectares ) of land within a residential medium density. The Cape Cod Canal flows north of the street . The building is surrounded by a lawn that is decorated with some trees and bushes. A flagpole and two street lamps in the area of the U-shaped driveway to the main entrance were rated as not contributing to the historical significance ( English noncontributing object ).
Outdoor areas
Erected in 1896 to plans by Boston architect Henry Vaughan, the building is a well-preserved example of the Colonial Revival architectural style . It is one and a half stories high and consists of a main part with a hipped roof , a protruding entrance area with a gable roof and an extension with a flat roof added in 1954 . The roof of the main part and the entrance area is provided with shingles made of red slate covered , with the fillet plates and Gratkappen from copper are provided. A wooden cornice runs around the entire building , into which gutters, which are also made of wood, are incorporated.
At the point where the roofs of the extension and the main part meet, a dome on an octagonal base rises up, supported by wooden pillars and covered with welded metal shingles painted in the same shade of red as the rest of the roof. There is a weather vane at the highest point of the dome . The outer walls consist of yellow-brown bricks in a flow bond . The extension stands on a concrete foundation, the foundation of the old building consists of granite blocks . There are also decorative elements such as corner stones and pilasters .
The main entrance is on the north side of the building. The roof is decorated with stucco and has a round window, below which a sign made of sequoia wood identifies the building as "JONATHAN BOURNE HISTORICAL CENTER". The wooden entrance door is flanked by pilasters, also made of wood, with Ionic capitals . A wide stone staircase with iron handrails leads up to the entrance.
Most of the windows are in the Palladian style with elliptical arches and granite window sills. The transitions between the window arches and the bricks are decorated with stucco. The window on the west side of the building has a central element made of stained glass , which shows the Archangel Michael with sword and shield standing in a wall niche . The glass for the window was made in England by Clayton & Bell.
Indoor areas
The room layout on the ground floor still corresponds to the original state. Corridors lead from the central entrance hall to the adjacent rooms. To the west of the entrance there are toilets, to the east a narrow spiral staircase leads down to the basement and a ladder to the undeveloped upper floor. The main part of the building is divided into three roughly equal areas. In the west is the former reading room, in the south the original book store (both are currently public rooms of the museum) and in the east the offices of the city archive.
The reading room has a Palladian style stained glass window depicting the Archangel Michael. The other windows are narrow, sit in arched recesses and have deep wooden window sills. The south side of the room is decorated with a red brick fireplace with two marble fireplace surrounds. Above it is a framed copper and bronze plaque measuring 4.5 ft (1.4 m ) by 3.5 ft (1.1 m), depicting a social scene with children playing the flute and older people sing. In the upper area of the plaque is the Flemish inscription “Soo Donde Songen Soo Pepin De Jonden”, which translates as “As the old sing, so the young flute”. The reading room is separated from the neighboring room by a wall that has a large arched opening that ends at a 2 ft (0.6 m) high counter.
A full-surface carpet lies on the wooden floors, the ceilings are plastered. Only the walls in the eastern room are plastered and have stucco decorations and wooden plinth panels. The walls and ceiling of the rear extension are made of plasterboard . In the south wall of the entrance area, within a stone frame, there is also a stone plaque with the inscription “THE / JONATHAN BOURNE / PUBLIC LIBRARY / ANO DNI 1896”. Two bronze chandeliers hang in the reading room and four in the eastern room, probably from the time the building was electrified in the early 20th century. The basement houses offices and storage rooms for the Bourne Historical Society and the Bourne Historical Commission.
Historical meaning
The building is of local historical importance , particularly in the areas of education , social history and architecture . It is closely related to the introduction and development of free-access libraries that began in Massachusetts in the 1840s and spread throughout the United States in the decades that followed. In 1890, Massachusetts was the first state to create a federal committee for the organization and consolidation of the public library system with the establishment of the Free Public Library Commission . Bourne was one of the first cities to seek assistance from the committee and received US $ 100 (approximately $ 3,170 today) from state funding to purchase initial books for the new library.
The building, completed in 1896, was built with financial support from Emily Howard Bourne, daughter of the city's namesake Jonathan Bourne. In the early days of public librarianship, it was common for philanthropists to finance the construction and furnishing of library buildings. Until the town hall, which is still in use today, was built in 1914, the library also served as the seat of the city administration.
The Boston architect of the building Henry Vaughan was known for his Catholic and Episcopal sacred buildings in the style of English Gothic architecture . Among other things, he worked as a supervising architect at the Washington National Cathedral . The Jonathan Bourne Public Library represents its own building type in the style of the Colonial Revival , which has a room layout specific to libraries, as it was considered appropriate at the time. With the exception of the rear annex added in 1954, which blends seamlessly into the external appearance, the building has been completely preserved in its original appearance. The street lights at the driveway and the flagpole are exact replicas of the originals.
See also
literature
- Jones, Carey L .; Kline, Laura J .; Friedberg, Betsy: National Register of Historic Places Registration Form. ( PDF ) National Park Service , October 2012, accessed on December 7, 2015 (English, accessible via the "NR" button).
Web links
- Jonathan Bourne Library in the United States Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System