The new Marshfield Public Library meets the community’s changing needs by creating an array of inviting places and means for people to engage in the library’s rich offerings while also repairing a gap in the city’s downtown urban fabric.
The new building provides a variety of attractive daylit spaces. On both floors, sunny seating areas along the south wall enjoy views of a garden and back to the old city hall. Under an upswept roof, angled stone walls create the signature “Cornerstone” quiet reading area at the northwest corner. An adjacent room provides a quiet place to explore the library’s local history and genealogy resources. Playful and inviting furniture and lighting create unique spaces for children on the first floor and for teens within the high second-floor volume.
Linked by a new shared lobby to the former library, which is now being converted into a community center, the project also transforms a piece of the urban fabric that was severely damaged in the twentieth century. It reconnects the adjacent historic neighborhood to Marshfield’s historic main street (Central Avenue) and provides a civic gateway from the new Veterans Parkway. The new building transforms and expands the architectural vocabulary of the attached existing building to create a coherent complex with a civic presence and inviting, humane scale.
