‘Something bigger, something better’: DC Library’s latest makeover in Southeast – WTOP News

The Southeast Public Library, part of the D.C. Public Library system, has just undergone a $41 million makeover.

And this week, officials there are celebrating the reopening.

The building, constructed in 1922 and one of several libraries built with funds from the Carnegie Foundation at the time, is just steps from D.C.’s Eastern Market Metro.

The brick exterior and front steps are unchanged, and on a recent tour of the library, Richard Reyes-Gavilan, executive director for the D.C. Public Library and Jaspreet Pahwa, director of Capital Planning and Construction, focused on the mix of old and new. 

“We all agreed that we needed something bigger, something better, but we also needed to preserve the historical footprint of this landmark building,” said Reyes-Gavilan. 

Pahwa said every detail was given extensive thought. “We took more time to go through the design process than we did to actually expand, restore and reimagine this library,” Pahwa said.

“It was always one of the busiest libraries in all of Washington, D.C., but in the smallest footprint,” Reyes-Gavilan said. So how did it expand to nearly double the square footage? “We basically supported the existing building on stilts in order to excavate about 25 to 40 feet of earth beneath the library,” all the while protecting the residential neighboring buildings, Reyes-Gavilan said. 

Reyes-Gavilan said the exterior is beautiful, but the original interior wasn’t people-friendly. Upon entering, he said, “You couldn’t help but feel somewhat dispirited. It was very dark, dank, the general feel was that people didn’t belong there.”

Now, he said, “you come in here and you see a building that’s really designed for people first,” he said. 

That starts from the exterior. While visitors can still head up a set of steps to the front entrance, there’s another, very different way to get inside the building. 

Go around the building to the entrance on South Carolina Avenue, Reyes-Gavilan said, and there’s a broad, V-shaped entrance accessible to all users. “We wanted to make it as wide as humanly possible, and as welcoming as humanly possible, and that’s what the team has achieved,” he said. 

Inside, on the upper level, there’s a fireplace — no longer working, but a focal point of the brightly lit space. A close look at the brick face just below the mantel shows bricks with carved designs. They’re figures from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and are original to the building. 

There are wing chairs for people to sit comfortably in the space ringing the fireplace, and above it all, a skylight that floods the area with daylight. 

The new, larger skylight is not original, but something called a lay-light is original to the building. Picture a smaller skylight with a windowpane pattern. Pahwa explained that the District’s office that deals with historic preservation pointed out a feature in another Carnegie Foundation library in D. C. — the one that is now the Apple Store — might be in the Southeast Library, and asked the renovation team to take a look. 

That revealed the lay-light that provides another light source on the upper level. “And we simply restored it. There is a historic skylight right above it.” She said, “During the day you see the diffused natural light, and after hours it’s the artificial light — also diffused.” 

On the lower level is where visitors will find the children’s section of the library. Instead of a room shoehorned into the library, Reyes-Gavilan said, there’s a spacious area divided into spaces for play, study, and curling up with a book. 

“We’ve got a space that is thousands and thousands of square feet — just for children. And that’s really exciting for me, ” Reyes-Gavilan said.

There are child-height tables with Lego-style toys — a miniature landscape with a bright red bridge, buildings, and cars — and nooks where children, or toddlers and parents, can settle for a reading session.

And Pahwa points out the wooden wall panel with doors that reveal images of animals and plants, and a range of sliding wooden figures. “This is just this idea of giving them tactile things to engage and interact with,” while developing fine motor skills, she said.

Reyes-Gavilan said in the past, libraries were, in his words, “transactional,” a space for storing and selecting books and leaving. 

Now there’s a space where visitors “can be together, just be, communicate, enjoy life, do whatever,” he said. 

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