Commission Brief: Architect was commissioned to design a structure to house the main branch of the District of Columbia Public Library. The original Carnegie Library, a white marble Beaux Arts Structure located at 801 K Street at Mount Vernon Square, was deemed outdated and overcrowded.

Design Brief: The Fine Arts Commission, which oversaw the design competition, required a flexible interior plan and a capacity to create an addition when needed. In addition, they specified the need for prominent points of vertical communication in the form of elevators and dumbwaiters in the design of the library. Prior to this structure, the Commission had never approved a Modernist design for Washington D.C. The design entailed a 400,000 square ft., four story building of steel, glass, and brick. There was a potential fifth story addition prefigured in the design and three underground stories that included a parking level for 100 automobiles.

Building/Construction: Construction on the building began in 1968 and was scheduled to finish in 1970, however it continued through the summer of 1972. The architect Mies van der Rohe died in 1969 while the building was still under construction.

Type of Change: The addition of a pedestrian plaza on the street adjacent to the library.
Date: (e) 1977
Circumstances/Reasons for Change: Desire to increase pedestrian access to the area around the library.
Effects of Change: The plaza, called Hubert H. Humphrey Memorial Plaza fell into disuse and disrepair and became an area that attracted vagrants and crime. The Plaza also changed the building’s relationship to the street pattern as it removed the flow of traffic by the library.
Organization involved: District of Columbia City Government.

Type of Change: The removal of the Hubert H. Humphrey Memorial Plaza and the reinstatement of the vehicular street.
Circumstances/Reasons for Change: City officials sought to revive the area surrounding the library and remove the plaza as a way to combat vagrancy and “blight.”
Date: (e) 1999
Effects of Change: Traffic was reintroduced to the surrounding area of the library.
Organization involved: District of Columbia City Government.

Type of Change: Removal of much of the furniture in the library designed by architect Mies van der Rohe.
Date: (c) 1980’s
Circumstances/Reasons for Change: The library was plagued with budget shortfalls and lack of funding which prevented proper care and maintenance of the entire building system.
Effects of Change: The furniture designed by Mies van der Rohe was part of the architectural concept of the building and its deterioration and removal changed the overall identity of the structure and the way that patrons related to it.
Organization involved: District of Columbia Library Board of Trustees, District of Columbia City Government.

Type of Change: The installation of a mural depicting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s. life in the lobby of the building.
Date: (e) January 20, 1986.
Circumstances / Reasons for Change: The mural was instated to commemorate the celebration of the first National Holiday dedicated to King and to solidify the connection between the library and King.
Effect of Change: The mural became one of the most revered parts of the library for visitors and patrons.

Of whole building/site: District of Columbia Public Library Main Branch

Of principal components: Many of the building’s integral components, such as elevators and HVAC systems are often inoperable. The state of disrepair in the library is of significant affect to the patrons and poses a serious threat to the operational integrity of the building.

Comments: The state of operational function of the building has come under much scrutiny, as Washington DC public officials and citizens debate the future use of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library.

Of whole building: The building’s primary structural components are in good condition, however many of its interior systems such as the HVAC system, lighting, and elevators are in great disrepair.

Of surrounding area: A plaza was built several years after the library was constructed that became rundown and has since been removed (see alterations section 2.5). Today the streets surrounding the building are open to vehicular traffic.

Mies designed the building to encapsulate a multitude of needs into a simple, clean form. The exterior, clad in tinted glass curtain walls and steel exudes a stylistically regulated and constrained façade that exhibits an unbroken rhythm upon the street. The rhythm is heightened, both literally and figuratively, by the existence of a colonnade on the street level of the building, where the steel frame rests upon regularly thrusting columns. The desire for complex patterns of circulation, both of people and of books, dominates the concern of the interior, with all seven floors (four above ground three below) striving to create a vertical unity through regularly placed elevator shafts and stairwells, and a myriad of open spaces leading to rooms with specific collections and functional uses.

Canonical Status: At the time of its inception, the building was lauded by both architecture critics and the general public as being a seamless application of Mies’ architectural principles to the concept of a library. The Washington Post architecture critic, Wolf Von Eckardt, stated that, “by the utter, pristine simplicity of the design…it is in itself a work of art, undoubtedly the best example of the art of modern architecture…in Washington D.C.” As the first library designed by Mies, too, it represented an innovative Modernist solution to the problem of a technologically and systematically designed space for late twentieth century society.

“Will the glass box fit in?”
This question has been posed since the design of the building was first presented by Mies van der Rohe to the Arts Commission of Washington D.C. Indeed, the debate is escalating again as the city prepares to move the library away from the Mies building to a new “twenty-first century library” (See 3.4 notes on context). In this sense, the building has long stood as a reference for greater questions about Modernist architecture. How does this architecture fit in with other cityscape forms? How are innovative, yet aging, systems addressed by contemporary engineers? In what ways does the public react aesthetically to Modernist structures as we enter the second decade of the twenty first century? In terms of canonical and reference value, the impetus and evolution surrounding work by Modernist and International Style Architects such as Mies van der Rohe is resoundingly contextualized by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library.

The Records of the Commission of Fine Arts holds correspondence pertaining to the commission and construction of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library:
The National Archives: Records of the Commission of Fine Arts. Washington D.C.
National Archives and Records Administration
700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20408-0001

There are many books written on the work of Mies van der Rohe, several notable of which are:

Johnson, Philip C. Mies van der Rohe. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1947.

Zukowsky, John. Mies Reconsidered: His Career, Legacy, and Disciples. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1986.

Schulze, Franz. An Illustrated Catalogue of Mies van der Rohe Drawings in the Museum of Modern Art, Part II: 1938-1967, The American Work. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc: 1992. Pg. 355-415.

Carter, Peter. Mies van der Rohe At Work. London: Phaidon Press, 1999.