2006: Suzzallo Library at the UW

Appointed President of the University in 1915, Henry Suzzallo had the dream of constructing a school for the ages, a “University of a Thousand Years,” a place connected to the community, fueled by innovative technology and enhanced by the strength and beauty of spacious buildings and classrooms.  Disagreement, however, over the allotment of government money to higher education, promulgated throughout local politics, particularly with Governor Roland H. Hartley, who resorted to appointing all new regents to the University in order to cut short Suzzallo’s presidency in 1926.

Designed by Carl F. Gould, Sr., and Charles H. Bebb, under the direction of President Suzzallo, a new campus library broke ground in April of 1923, despite mounting controversy between Suzzallo and Governor Hartley.  Its embellishments follow the traditional yet grand Gothic script, including ogee portals, ornate columns, and eighteen terra-cotta statues.  Designed by Allan Clark, these statues symbolize contributions to learning and culture and include such notables as Moses, Shakespeare, da Vinci, and Darwin.  Over the main threshold of the building, three cast stone figures representing “Mastery,” “Inspiration” and “Thought” watch over as students pass.  Shields of the “Great Universities of the World,” like Oxford, Uppsala, and Louvain, decorate the tops of the columns.

If the grand façade of the building does not capture onlookers’ breath, then a journey to the Suzzallo Reading Room certainly will.  The Reading Room removes one from a current time and place to that of a European Gothic Basilica, complete with majestic 35-foot high stained glass windows, oak bookcases with hand-carved friezes, and two hand-painted globes suspended above the naves.  This room, which is kept completely silent for studying students, along with the main façade, makes up what is known as the original wing of the library, completed in 1926.  The building officially opened in 1927 and was judged among libraries to be the “most beautiful on the continent.”

The library was officially named for Henry Suzzallo in 1933, after he became President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, among numerous other positions and awards that he received.  After reopening from earthquake renovation in 2002, Jake Ellison of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer aptly quoted one historian, saying that Suzzallo library truly is the “physical expression of a grand idea.”

-Jenée Myers, Writer (2006)