Minutillo, Josephine
Musick City Remix - February 1, 2020 - New York BNP Media 2020 - 100-104p.
Opened in 1965, the Carnegie Main Library building, later known as the Ben West Library, was a rare Midcentury Modern gem in downtown Nashville. It fell into disuse by the turn of the 21st century when, in 2001, a much larger Neoclassical structure, designed by Robert A. M. Stern Architects and located a couple of blocks away, replaced it. Mainly abandoned since then, apart from a brief period when it housed the mayor’s offices and city council members’, the former library, unlike other buildings of its era in the city, narrowly escaped the wrecking ball. A landmark designation in 2015 saved the 42,000-square-foot modernist marble pile—for which its architect, Bruce Crabtree of the once-prominent local firm Taylor & Crabtree, had held particular affection. But a cumbersome ownership arrangement of the ¾-acre property, involving both the city and private entities, as well as its new historic status—which scared away developers but attracted creative enterprises an..
ARCHITECTURE GENERAL (AR-GEN)
Musick City Remix - February 1, 2020 - New York BNP Media 2020 - 100-104p.
Opened in 1965, the Carnegie Main Library building, later known as the Ben West Library, was a rare Midcentury Modern gem in downtown Nashville. It fell into disuse by the turn of the 21st century when, in 2001, a much larger Neoclassical structure, designed by Robert A. M. Stern Architects and located a couple of blocks away, replaced it. Mainly abandoned since then, apart from a brief period when it housed the mayor’s offices and city council members’, the former library, unlike other buildings of its era in the city, narrowly escaped the wrecking ball. A landmark designation in 2015 saved the 42,000-square-foot modernist marble pile—for which its architect, Bruce Crabtree of the once-prominent local firm Taylor & Crabtree, had held particular affection. But a cumbersome ownership arrangement of the ¾-acre property, involving both the city and private entities, as well as its new historic status—which scared away developers but attracted creative enterprises an..
ARCHITECTURE GENERAL (AR-GEN)