The challenged is to write a description of Battle Hall without evaluating or offering any inferences to the building’s iconography.  I decided, as an architect, I would approach the description of the building as if I were to draft it and render it on paper.

Excerpt:

The Plan

Battle Hall was planned and designed as the University’s first library, and it is still a library today; it is home to the UT Architecture and Planning Library.[i] A grand Reading Room with offices below occupies the east building-bar running north and south (the horizontal of the “T”), and library stacks, archives, and additional offices in the west building-bar (the vertical of the “T”).  The building has two prominent levels with a basement that is visible only on the south and west elevation, and accessible only to authorized individuals.  I will start ‘drawing’ the building’s main level, the level of the Reading Room.  In the Reading Room, identical, large semi-circular arched windows set the proportion and rhythm of the room.  Seven arched windows punctuated the long east wall flush to the floor without a tall sill condition; similar and equal in size perforations repeated on the west wall, except not all of these are windows; the center three openings are thresholds to circulation desk, stairs, and/or library administrative area.  One arched window centered on each of the short end walls (north and south) of the Reading Room.  The spacing and positions of the windows indicated to me that the room is a bit over twice as long as its width, a simple measurement by pacing across the room along its length and width verified this observation (the length is about two and one third of the width).  Through the center arched threshold on the Reading Room’s west wall, one first encounters the ‘circulation zone,’ lit by a domed leaded glass “ceiling light” above, for both books and people.  To the east of the “ceiling light” is the service desk with staff offices (the original Cataloging Room) beyond, where faculty and students check out books and materials they retrieved from the stacks.  To the west of the “ceiling light” is a wide top landing of a marble staircase leading to the vestibule on the floor below.  Beyond this ‘circulation zone,’ which is about the width of the Reading Room, are the library stacks.  The interior volume of the stacks are subdivided into two levels, each filled with metal shelves from almost floor to ceiling.

 

Furnishing and Interior Finishes

Furnishing and interior finishes often indicate how a space is used and defines circulation through the space.  Despite the hard, thick masonry outer shell of the Reading Room, the interior of the Reading Room is lined and filled with furnishing and finishes made out of a few different wood species in a harmonious palette (carved wooden traceries and trims, painted wood-clad roof trusses, wood roof decking, and wood furniture); the wood softens and warms up the space like the velvet lining inside a jewelry box.  Decorative wooden louvers trimmed each of the arched windows in a consistent eighteen inches wide ban, while the operable louvers screened the rest of the window, filtering light into the Reading Room.  On the west wall, what is most striking, are the elaborately carved, delicate wooden tracery door and screen, inset in the center three arched openings.  The only way to describe this trio is to imagine a highly decorated parclose in a medieval church, where it is used to divide a special space from the general space, which the screens seem to serve a similar function here in the Reading Room: they demarcate the edge of Reading Room and the servicing and cataloging area.  Along the perimeter of the Reading Room, wooden bookshelves line the walls between windows.  Stored on these shelves are periodicals and non-circulating reference and reserved books.  Paired wooden desks occupy the foot of each arched window, taking advantage of the natural light.  Long, beautifully carved wooden reading tables and few sofa seating fill the rest of center space of the Reading Room in three different ‘zones.’  In the north third, six long reading tables in two rows run in the north and south direction, it seems to provide an easier access (almost directing the flow of traffic) to the Battle Hall Centennial Exhibit currently occupying this end of the room.  The center third of the Reading Room is composed of a long display table, five pieces of long and short leather sofa and chairs arranged on an area rug, and two unoccupied wooden desk centered on the entry axis, what seems to have been the “Information Desk.”  In the south third are more long reading tables, but these run in the east and west direction.  To accommodate modern technology, couples of the tables in the south third are filled with research terminals: computers.  On the floor of the Reading Room are square quarry tiles in red and greenish gray, with most of the tiles in gray and the red tiles providing an accent and creating a decorative pattern.  Also to be noted, the tile pattern is turned ninety degrees: meaning the corners of the square tiles point to the Reading Room walls, instead of having their edges run parallel to the walls.

 

 

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[i]. “Our Landmark Library – Battle Hall at 100.”