The Grand Rapids Press

How do you get two buildings that were the architectural equivalent of the Hatfields and the McCoys to overcome their differences?

Give them something in common, say the architects for the $17.5 million renovation of the Grand Rapids Public Library downtown.

"The challenge was how to take two very peculiar buildings that were joined at the hip and get them to speak to each other in a way that made sense," said Malcolm Holzman, founding partner of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates, a New York firm that has a reputation for turning old libraries into architectural showpieces.

Holzman was in Grand Rapids on Thursday to give a tour of the building to nearly 100 people, many of whom are members of the Grand Valley chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

The renovated library, set to reopen in April, is part of a $31 million city-wide library improvement effort approved by voters in 1997. An $8 million fund-raising campaign by the Ryerson Library Foundation is helping to pay for the improvements.

The pair of buildings are the 1904 beaux-arts style Ryerson and an addition built in 1967. The two were formerly accessible to library patrons by an elevator.

In its place is a four-story, open atrium, painted in deep orange and with a 12-foot clock that hangs on the former northern exterior wall of the Ryerson. Light coming through the top of the atrium will draw patrons from one building to the other, Holzman said.

"Before, they were two very disjointed structures," he said. "Now, you walk in and understand everything. It's like the light at the end of the tunnel. It just sort of sucks you through."

The main entrance has been relocated from Bostwick Avenue NE south to Library Street, where patrons will once again enter through the Ryerson entrance and lobby, which features French marble mosaic floor tile and a 40-foot marble-lined atrium framed by sculpted plaster ceilings that were hidden behind drop particle board for more than 40 years.

Local architect Jim Vander Molen agreed with Holzman's decision to reopen the Ryerson as the main entrance, despite design challenges in making the entrance wheelchair accessible.

"Everyone has the right to experience the full grandeur of this building," Vander Molen said. "I think architects have a moral responsibility to make that happen."

Just as the two buildings were different on the inside, they were different on the outside as well -- and still are. The 1967 addition -- to be called the Keeler wing -- now has a limestone and glass exterior.

Holzman said he never intended to try to match the former brick exterior of the 1967 addition to the polished limestone of the Ryerson.

"You really could not have, because the buildings don't line up," he said. "It would have looked ridiculous. The only thing you could do is make them better neighbors."

"I can hardly wait to see the community's reaction to this," said Tom Genson, former assistant library director who headed the building renovation project before he left last February to become the director of the Herrick District Library in Holland.

"What's wonderful about libraries is that they're not a gift to anyone," he said, "they're a gift to everyone."