This remarkable jewel-box is the Beinecke Library for Rare Books on the campus of Yale University. It is as close to a perfectly conceived and executed building as I have seen, certainly one of the greatest work of American architecture.
Yale Art and Architecture Building
I recently made a trip back to New Haven and visited my grad school haunt, the Yale Art and Architecture building. To say that it is a remarkable building does not do justice to its monumental and cruel presence. Siting on the edge of Yale's collegiate gothic campus, the stark Brutalist hulk has a severe monumentality that perfectly reflects the role of architecture and architects at its 1963 completion.
Return to New Haven
I recently spent a long weekend in New Haven, Connecticut, the town of my grad school and a place I have not visited in more than twenty years. I can happily confirm what so many folks have told me - that New Haven is a dramatically nicer and safer place than it was when I was at Yale in the early 1990s.