 Wilton, Connecticut, June 2002 - The Wilton Library Association
selected Tai Soo Kim Partners to provide architectural design services
for approximately $8.7 million in improvements to its library, in
order to more than double the square footage of the existing 17,000 sf building
and to better serve the library's function as the cultural hub and "living
room" of the community.
In addition to traditional areas for book stacks and reading, the Association
expects to create spaces for: community programs and meetings, computer
training, local history materials, a gallery, quiet study, teens, children's
arts and crafts, media, parenting and storytelling.
The Association chose Tai Soo Kim Partners because of its award-winning
architecture in the modernist tradition and proven design talents demonstrated
at the Cider Mill School, Wilton, according to Malcolm Whyte, AIA, chair
of the Library's building committee. Other recent works that showcase the
firm's creative approach and sensitivity to client interests and concerns
are the master planning and design for Northwestern Connecticut Community
College, with a new library now under construction; design of Ross Commons,
a residential dining quad at Middlebury College, Vermont; master planning
and design for the new 21-acre U.S. Embassy Compound, Tunisia; and the
main lobby design for the historic Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford.
Whyte notes that Eliot Noyes designed the original Wilton Library in 1974,
and believes it is one of Noyes' finest non-residential projects. His early
architectural practice was in the New Canaan area with Marcel Breuer and
Phillip Johnson, and he later formed a partnership practice with Allan
Goldbert. Whyte knew Elliott from his own work at IBM overseeing international
facilities.
After graduation from Harvard (1938) Noyes was employed by Marcel Breuer
and Walter Gropius, and served as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art,
directing the department of industrial design there in 1940. From the early
50s until his death in 1977, Noyes served as a design consultant to IBM,
along with other notable designers such as Charles and Ray Eames. He provided
consultation on everything from interior design, to graphics and product
design, such as the Selectric typewriter in 1959.
According to the American Library Association, large and small communities
have been reinvesting in libraries as centers of learning, literacy and
culture in the Information Age. Across the nation, many communities have
been building or renovating main and branch libraries to reflect the need
for new and expanded services.
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