Miriam Matthews Hyde Park Branch Library
Hyde Park, Los Angeles
HplusF Architecture and Design

Hodgetts + Fung creates a branch that engages the street in a lively manner while handling difficult security issues

© Benny Chan/Fotoworks

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Built at the epicenter of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the Hyde Park Miriam Matthews Branch Library stands as a testament to civic renewal and the healing power of architecture.

More than just a place to read or gather, the library reaffirms the city’s faith in South Los Angeles as a vibrant neighborhood and a generator of hope.Part of an ambitious program to build 36 libraries in communities around Los Angeles, the Hyde Park branch needed to make a statement that reinvestment in small-scale civic structures could make people’s lives better. Although just 10,500 square feet, the new library offers almost twice the number of volumes as the neighborhood’s old facility (40,000 books, compared with 25,000). And it nearly triples the number of computer terminals to 28, up from 10.Hodgetts + Fung originally envisioned the Hyde Park library as an exercise in glass and colored light.

But the client wanted something bolder, so principals Craig Hodgetts, AIA, and Hsin-Ming Fung, AIA, decided to give the building a more sculptural presence. “We looked at Brancusi’s work because it has such great energy,” says Hodgetts.Eventually, the architects designed the building with angled glue-laminated-wood columns and beams on the inside and moss-colored cement-board walls on the outside. “We wanted it to be muscular, to have an animal-like quality to it,” explains Fung. Sitting on a corner site, the building offers four different faces to its surroundings. While all elevations emphasize masonry at street level and glazing above (for security reasons), each has its own personality.

The south-facing street front expresses a sense of motion with its long, linear composition of glass and cement board topped by a copper-tinted-steel sawtooth roof. On the north, where patrons enter from the parking lot, the architects greet them with a jazzy series of angled wood-frame brise-soleils projecting from the facade. The shorter side elevations speak in quieter tones.In plan, the library is essentially a simple rectangle, but Hodgetts + Fung embued the interiors with a visual richness by layering materials and angled forms in a syncopated rhythm. “We wanted it to feel like jazz,” says Fung.

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Formal name of Project:
Miriam Matthews Hyde Park Branch Library

Location:
Van Ness Avenue and Florence Boulevard
Hyde Park, Los Angeles

Gross square footage:
10,500 sq. ft.

Total construction cost:
$3.15 Million

Client:
Library Facilities Division Los Angeles Public Library

Architect:
HplusF Architecture and Design
www.hplusf.com