ABSTRACT

From the 1950s to 1970s, postwar residential development in cities, towns, and suburbs across the US, brought with it new demand for small neighborhood and community libraries. The small library at this time was reimagined as a new kind of community center, supporting a broader range of library activities—social and recreational, as well as cultural and educational. A number of large central municipal libraries were developed, in some cases to replace older Carnegie facilities that, after 50 or 60 years of use, were outmoded. Outside, the new community library adapted to the residential scale and character of its neighborhood surroundings—blending in, rather than standing out. Grosse Pointe Public Library near Detroit, by Marcel Breuer from 1953, incorporates many of the characteristic features of the small community library of the era, adapted to a suburban downtown site with commercial-retail use nearby.