Synopsis
In a previous post, "Are Public Libraries Still Important?", I discussed the historical development of public libraries, the public library in Guelph, and, suggested that while the role of libraries is changing, Guelph still needs one. In this one, I will deal with the creation of Guelph's Carnegie Library, it's destruction, and, what lessons we need to learn from it.
&&&&
 |
| Andrew Carnegie, from US National Portrait Gallery, c/o Wiki Commons |
Carnegie believed that the rich had a moral obligation to use their money to benefit society. To this end, he wrote extensively on this subject, which became known as "The Gospel of Wealth". He suggested that the really wealthy had an obligation to spend most of their money on good works for the community, live modest lives themselves, and, if a person insisted on trying to amass inter-generational wealth, the state should intervene and impose very high estate taxes to prevent the creation of an "inheritor class". Moreover, he believed that wealthy individuals should personally administer their wealth in a way that didn't just succor the poor, but helped them work their way out of poverty altogether. Probably the best way to understand him is to think of parallels between Carnegie as a 19th century Bill Gates or Warren Buffet, and his library fund as being similar to the Gates Foundation's attempts to control malaria or bring public education to the Third World.
Carnegie believed that access to a free library as a youth was tremendously important to his later life, so he set up a foundation that donated funds to communities all over the world to create public libraries. At first, the only stipulation was that local government agreed to fund the on-going maintenance of the library once it had been built. But shortly thereafter, as a result of some bad designs being OK'd by communities, he instituted guidelines that standardized building features to a certain extent.
&&&&
Before I get into the specific conversation in Guelph regarding building the Carnegie library, I want to give people some context. In the outside world, the Empire---including Canadian volunteers---was just finishing off a war in Southern Africa (the Boer War.) There was an international terror campaign being waged not by ISIS, but by anarchists. And there were concerns about American soldiers water-boarding insurgents resisting their occupation of the Philippines.
 |
| American Soldiers Torturing Philippine Citizen US Army Photo, c/o Wiki Commons |
Closer to home a terrorist bomb was found in the canal being built to channel water from Niagara Falls to a electrical generation facility. As well, someone was poisoning sheep in Elora by spreading Paris Green on their pasturage. A big debate was taking place in Guelph about whether or not sanitary sewers should be installed. Local doctors gave testimony to Council suggesting that these were essential to preventing outbreaks of diphtheria and typhoid. In addition, Council also had to deal with other important issues, such as managing a telephone system, natural gas (as opposed to manufactured coal gas), and, the connection of railways. (This was just before the creation of the Ontario Railway and Municipal Board---today's OMB---which was tasked with helping municipalities deal with these complex technical issues.) In addition, there was a great deal of "back and forth" by Council over a proposed glue factory in the city because of concerns about the smell it would produce. As a result of all these contentious, difficult issues, it was not unknown for Council meetings to continue until midnight.
&&&&
In 1901 the Public Library Committee applied to the Carnegie Foundation for funds to build a public library building in Guelph. The grant was approved, and Guelph was given $24,000. To put this amount in context, in 1905 the total budget of City Council came to $138,000. And using an on-line money calculator provided by the Bank of Canada, I was able to convert $24,000 1914 dollars (the earliest date allowed) to $520,000 today. To put things into another context, the current city budget's projected gross expenditures is $484 million. 24,000 is 17% of 138,000. And 17% of today's gross budget is $82.28 million dollars. Obviously cities like Guelph were very happy indeed to be given a library!
"The report of the Special committee on the Free Library recommended the granting of a site and further recommending the granting of Nelson crescent as the site was adopted." (Guelph Mercury, April 25, 1902)
Council then held a special meeting where it adopted the recommendations of the Free Library committee and formally accepted the Carnegie donation.
Oddly enough, one city Councillor, John J. Drew, was so upset about a special meeting being held to accept the Carnegie money that he resigned his seat in protest and sued the city. Believe it or not, the suit was settled in less than one month and only cost the city $12 ( $260 in today's dollars.) Obviously the legal system functioned very differently in 1902 than it does in 2017. It isn't clear from the Mercury why Drew was so upset, other than he was standing on the principle that there should be no special meetings to decide important issues.
Later on, in 1905 there was a letter to the Editor by a George Norrish that mentioned that some people in Guelph were complaining that the Carnegie library was being paid for with "blood money". He doesn't go into detail, but I can only assume that they were referring to things like the Johnston Flood, the Homestead Strike, and, Carnegie's association with Henry Clay Frick. To understand why anyone would take issue with such a generous donation, readers should consider these different parts of Andrew Carnegie's business life.
The Johnston Flood was an catastrophe that was created when a consortium of business magnates---including Frick and Carnegie---bought an old artificial lake in Pennsylvania. It had been originally built to provide flow for a state canal system, but the investors purchased it to form a hunting and fishing club. They put in several "improvements", including an access road on the top of the dam, a screen on the spillway to prevent fish from escaping downstream, and, removed an elaborate set of pipes that were used to regulate water levels downstream. After the dam's failure, consulting engineers reported that they believed that all of these measures weakened it and contributed to the catastrophe. On May 31, 1889---after a period of exceptionally heavy rain---the dam failed and sent a wall of water and debris cascading downstream. It killed 2,209 people.
 |
| Just one part of the Johnstown Flood Catastrophe Contemporary Lithograph, c/o Wiki Commons |
Iron production had traditionally been a somewhat skilled job, which gave the workers in foundries significant leverage when it came to negotiating contracts. Carnegie's new technology and vertical integration of steel making "dumbed the job down". This meant that most of the jobs became just manual labour. Individual workers were easily replaced and this dramatically reduced their ability to negotiate good contracts with management. When prices went down, wages were cut substantially too. And because of the "disruptive technology" that Carnegie adopted, the steel prices did go down dramatically. In the Homestead Iron Works the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers (AA) attempted to organize and support a union and fought against management's attempts to hire men through "Yellow Dog Contracts"---which forced workers to agree that they gave up the right to join a union if they worked for the company. This "push and pull" escalated over several years to the point where armed battles broke out between the union members and the local community on the one hand, and, forces of hired thugs (Pinkerton detectives) on the other. At one point this included a fight where the union used a twenty-pounder artillery piece against a barge filled with strike breakers who attempted an amphibious landing at an occupied factory! People were killed and wounded, and the Governor eventually called out the state militia to intervene.
 |
| The 18th Regiment Arrives, Harper's 1892 Copyright Expired, c/o Wiki Commons |
 |
| Berkman Attempts to Kill Frick Harper's, Expired Copyright, c/o Wiki Commons |
At this point the record goes dark. The month of July, 1905 is totally missing from the Mercury microfilms. This means that whatever story there was about the grand opening is gone forever. The earliest mention that I could find was an August 16 story that mentions the first public lecture given in the new facility. A Mr. W. H. P. Anderson was brought in by the Clerk's and Salesmen's Association. Three hundred people attended.
Fast forward to 1964. The big stories on the front page revolve around civil rights in the USA---lots of pictures of black people rioting, ominous stories about civil rights workers disappearing in the South, the odd speech by Martin Luther King Jr.. LBJ is pushing through the Civil Rights Act, and the Republican Party has nominated Barry Goldwater for the next presidential election (and thereby scaring the bejesus out of Canadian editorial cartoonists.) Canada is committed to another military fracas in a small, far-away country---this time it's Cyprus instead of South Africa.
Fast forward to 1964. The big stories on the front page revolve around civil rights in the USA---lots of pictures of black people rioting, ominous stories about civil rights workers disappearing in the South, the odd speech by Martin Luther King Jr.. LBJ is pushing through the Civil Rights Act, and the Republican Party has nominated Barry Goldwater for the next presidential election (and thereby scaring the bejesus out of Canadian editorial cartoonists.) Canada is committed to another military fracas in a small, far-away country---this time it's Cyprus instead of South Africa.
Terrorism is still an issue, but now it isn't the international anarchist movement, instead it's Quebec nationalists---who are raiding militia armories and setting off bombs that destroy property and kill the odd person who gets in the way, and, the Ku Klux Klan blowing up churches and murdering civil rights workers. Prime Minister Mike Pearson and John Defenbaker were involved in a seemingly never-ending debate about adopting a new national flag. (Almost as a side-line, the Pearson government was also creating the Medical Care Act and the Canadian Pension Plan.)
Judging from the letters to the editor, it is easy to believe that the flag and water fluoridation were the two most important issues for Guelph residents. But there were other issues for people to write about. For example:
I believe that a Mrs. Hogan in her recent letter has exposed an uneasiness that a number of people feel about the annual Kiwannas Minstrel Show--- ---we are passing through a period of considerable racial tension not all of which is confided to the nation to the South. Is it wise or just to continue to perpetrate a stereotype of the American negro personality which is no longer valid, if indeed it ever was?
signed, Robert C. Kail, April 22, 1964 Mercury letter
 |
| Here's a picture of local Guelph service club "minstrel show" from the 1960s Photo reproduced with the permission of the owner. |
&&&&
With regard to the public library, a story in the January 28th, 1964 edition of the Mercury stated that a D. J. Matthews, who was chairman of the Library Board, reported that the Board was not in favour of demolishing the old Carnegie library unless it was "structurally necessary". He also said that land had been purchased next to the existing library for $52,000 for the new building. City Council then decided to set aside $500,000 for building the structure. Using the Bank of Canada's groovy inflation calculator, this translates into $414,000 to purchase the land, and, about $4 million for the building in today's dollars. The total operating budget for the city of Guelph in 1964 was $7.58 million, or $60.4 million in today's dollars. The cost of the library translates to 7% of the entire Guelph budget. To put that into perspective, the 2015 tax levy in Guelph (that is, what Council collected in taxes---but not in fees or transfers from other levels of government---it is hard to read a city budget because of all such complexities) was $208 million. And 7% of that would be $14.6 million. It is obvious that building a new library was a very substantial investment for the city in 1964---and there was no deep-pocketed steel magnate around to pony up.
Even with this assurance from the Library Board, several people were concerned about the future of the library because they could see what had happened to a lot of other architecturally significant buildings in the Downtown, although other voices were in favour of it's demolition.
"Guelph does its best to destroy every trace of its early architecture, and there seem to be very few voices raised to stop this tragic deed", (letter to Mercury by Barclay Holmes, March 2/64.)...
"The Guelph Public Library, now the subject of so many letters to the editor, is not old as Guelph buildings go. Our city hall is 100 years old, our court house 120; many homes are 100 years old. The library is not build in an architectural style distinctive to Guelph.---(Actually, contrary to what Mr. Cameron says, there seemed have been a lot more letters to the Mercury concerning fluoridation of water and the flag than there were about keeping the Carnegie library.)
---There would be no harm in preserving the library building, if efficient use could be made of it; but the library board has made a thorough study of this aspect of the question, and has had expert advice on it. To preserve the building for its own sake would be ridiculous." (letter to Mercury by Marion D. Cameron, March 11/64.)
...
"Sir:...
At a recent meeting of the Wellington County Historical Research Society, we endorsed a resolution protesting against the "pending destruction" of the old Library building.
As it is one of the oldest and most artistic structures existing, we would wish to have it remain as is. Hoping the result will be in favour of the historical group.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs H. M. Warren,
Wellington County Historical Research Society" (letter to Mercury, March 12/64)
"---As nearly as I can classify it, it seems to be an ordinary piece of early Carnegie pseudo-classical to which a silo was affixed. In its turn, the silo or grain elevator has a low Byzantine dome capped with tar. The building does not enshrine any production of lost or vanishing skills. Instead, it represents a rather elementary exercise in materials that are richer and better in our own day. Elementary, I say, because we can now employ these building materials in a more pleasing and useful fashion. The point has not been emphasized so afar by your correspondents that the "stone" blocks of the building are an early form of concrete aggregate overlain by a sand wash: it's ornamental elements are of precast concrete or of pressed metal. If it is necessary to preserve this type of building, why not encourage one of the 2,800 other communities having Carnegie libraries to embalm theirs? I, for one, would not travel far to inspect one of these dreary, obsolete structures.Oughton goes on to state the the population of Guelph in 1964 was between 30,000 and 60,000 and it was near the bottom of support per capita of comparable cities. For example, Sarnia spent $3.77/person/year, whereas Guelph only spent $1.96. (Obviously milk and beer were a LOT cheaper back then!) In 2017 dollars, $1.96 translate to $15.62---which helps us put things into perspective. In 2015 the Library received $8.37 million from the city (there are other sources, but the lion's share comes from Guelph Council.) Since Guelph's population is about 130,000 people, this translates to something like $64 per person today---a four-fold increase in support for Guelph, but only a doubling for Sarnia.
---At present, our library costs the average Guelph citizen about $1.96/year---the approximate equivalent of nine quarts of milk, of two hockey games, or of a dozen beers per year."
(Mercury letter by John Oughton, March 26/64)
&&&&
John Oughton's letter is quite interesting. He makes a couple of strong statements that can be looked at in turn.
First of all, he suggests that the Carnegie library is not worth preserving because it is made of concrete. I've heard surprise from friends who assumed that the old library was made of Guelph limestone like so many other buildings. But I think we need to be careful not to be biased against ugly old concrete. Consider the following picture:
 |
| Copyleft, MarkusMark, c/o Wiki Commons |
This looks like another ugly old building made out of concrete. It also has an attached "silo". Let's take a look at the front:
 |
| Copyleft, Martin Olsson, c/o Wiki Commons |
 |
| Copyleft, Wknight94, c/o Wiki Commons |
Of course, the above is the Pantheon of Rome. Most people don't know this, but this 2,000 year old building---one of the very few ancient buildings that still stands intact---is made of concrete. I think that we can discard any idea that a building is not worth preserving just because it is made of concrete instead of stone.
&&&&
It is obviously true that the old building was simply too small and old-fashioned to continue to be Guelph's main library. But did that mean it needed to be torn down? Couldn't it have been "embalmed"---to use Oughton's loaded verb? It turns out that the province of Ontario has a website devoted to "embalmed" Carnegie libraries so the tourist can peruse their funeral grandeur---something like visiting the mummy collection at the ROM. Carnegie funded one hundred and eleven libraries in Ontario, Sixty-one are still in use as libraries. Thirty-four have been "re-purposed" and are in use for other, non-library uses. Only sixteen---including Guelph's---were torn down.
&&&&
On June 3rd, 1964 the death sentence was announced under the caption "Retention of Library Building Not Advised":
Later on, there was a story on June 16th under the title "Opposition Is Voiced to Library Demolition" with the subtitle of "Board to Get Final Plans Construction of Building".
The problem with Brutalism is that it doesn't fit into our culture, it usually doesn't fit into the way the rest of the street looks, and, very often it additionally doesn't fit into our climate. But at the time that the Carnegie library was built public buildings were consciously designed to hearken back the old Temples and Palaces of old Europe. The idea was that the public sphere was above the commercial or personal. It demanded more from an architect. But in the sixties people thought that the old was stultifying and needed to be purged. Ordinary people bye-and-large didn't know where things were going, so they tended to go along with what the experts were saying. And, of course, the people paying the bills were over-joyed to have found an architectural school that designed buildings that were cheaper to build.
But there were people in 1964 who were upset about having the old Carnegie library demolished. In contrast, I suspect that almost no one would shed a tear about the demise of the present one. What's the difference? I'd say that it's because the present population has had to live through so much radical and accelerating change that they are heartily sick of buildings that are "new" and "innovative", or even "utilitarian". They want something that fits into the landscape and reminds them of their culture. And they want to refer to things like ancient Greek temples, not strip malls.
When James A. Murray recommended that the old Carnegie building be demolished he talked about its size, the number of front steps, the damp basement, etc. But these are non sequiturs. They are reasons to no longer use the existing building as the main library, not to tear it down. The building could have been kept as a library annex. Or it could have been re-purposed as a lecture hall or something else. If it needed it, I find it exceptionally hard to believe that it couldn't have been repaired. If the Pantheon has lasted 2,000 years, I suspect that Guelph's Carnegie library could have lasted at least another 100. What I suspect actually happened was that the library committee hired a modern architectural firm that simply didn't like the old ways of doing things and wanted to follow the latest fad. And Guelph simply followed the line of least resistance and did what they were told.
&&&&
When I started researching this story I had a vague idea about using it as a way to draw parallels to the current arguments you see about the built environment in Guelph. But the laborious process of working through a few years of the old Guelph Mercury teased out other issues, ones that I think are pretty important and rarely discussed.
A minor story about an Alderman resigning his position to protest the process where the Carnegie library was built, and, a letter to the editor by someone complaining about other people saying the building was being paid for with "blood money", opened up an entire world that has disappeared without a trace in the popular consciousness. The Johnstown Flood and the Homestead strike were as big as 9/11 and Black Lives Matter in their day. This got me thinking about other issues. Other little items jumped out at me too. A brief mention of American officers on trial for war crimes got me doing some research into the Philippines occupation. And that led to me finding out that waterboarding was being done by the US long before the "war on terror". Indeed, a note about the bomb being placed in a construction site in Niagara Falls plus the attack on Henry Clay Frick led me to learning about the international terrorist movement by Anarchists. And further research on destroying the Carnegie library opened my eyes to the scale of the threat caused by the FLQ in 1964. Can you imagine what the reaction would be today if a group was breaking into militia armories to steal weapons and explosives?
&&&&
The second issue that struck me was that the fundamental issue with tearing down the Carnegie library wasn't replacing it, per se, but rather that people were upset with what replaced it. People don't like brutalism, and it's still why they oppose new buildings again and again. Unfortunately, the government and big business are so in love with it, that people have been conditioned to fight tooth and nail against all new buildings because they know that when push comes to shove, the architectural design that will be chosen will be a big, nasty-looking, flat-roofed building block. The professional architects will come up with some groovy language about how it fits into some sort of aesthetic framework---but we all know that they built it this way because it's the cheapest way to to do it, and, the government is going to let them do it that way. Developers complain about the Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) phenomenon, but I'd argue that a lot of the time it's really No More Brutalism!
To be fair to the planning department, they have been trained by the OMB to accept this sort of development simply because they know that if they did try to force developers to build differently, they would just get dragged through an expensive OMB hearing and lose anyway. One can only hope that the recent announcement by the Liberal government that they are going to radically overhaul the OMB will finally allow planning departments to force architects to end their love affair with brutalism.
&&&&
This article was only possible because we have a library. That is where I found the microfilms of the Guelph Mercury to do the primary research. It also shows how important it is to have local news sources. Without the work of the unnamed reporters who ground out stories day after day, there would be no record at all. And I would never have known that John J. Drew resigned his seat over accepting the Carnegie money, that there were folks complaining over the "blood money", or, that a relatively famous Toronto architect, James A. Murray, was involved in the decision to tear down the old building.
This brings me to my final point. Guelph needs to support local news production. Guelph Today and the Guelph Mercury Tribune simply do not count as real news sources. We need a lot more. That's why I support Adam Donaldson's Guelph Politico through a monthly Patreon pledge. It's also why I am asking people who read the Guelph Back-Grounder to consider doing the same thing. We need to support the pioneers of alternative journalism if we are ever going to get the industry off the ground.
The Back-Grounder isn't put out regularly, so another way to support it is to just put a little money in the tip jar when you think a particular story was really good.
Also, if you are a small business or non-profit that would like to advertise in the Back-Grounder, I can accommodate that too. Email me at "thecloudwalkingowl@gmail.com" for more information.
&&&&
On June 3rd, 1964 the death sentence was announced under the caption "Retention of Library Building Not Advised":
Much to the surprise of many Guelphites, the Toronto architects who have studied the library situation in the royal City in the preparation of plans for a new public library, point out that the walls of the present library building along with the moldings are "artificial or imitation stone"---
---the exterior artificial stone facing of the building shows signs of deterioration and that it is almost impossible to repair artificial stone which is spalling and cracking---
The report, prepared by James A. Murray, goes on to point out that the activities of the public library require a space of 27,850 square feet whereas the old Carnegie building is only 6,800 square feet in size. Moreover, the front entrance requires people navigate 17 steps to enter. (It is nice to see someone thinking about these sorts of issues all the way back in 1964!) The children's section is in the basement, which is damp---which would be very difficult and expensive to fix. The story goes on to say: "The proposed new library, he says, would replace one with artificial stone with one natural stone---".
Later on, there was a story on June 16th under the title "Opposition Is Voiced to Library Demolition" with the subtitle of "Board to Get Final Plans Construction of Building".
Guelph library board was authorized by city council in committee Monday to proceed with arrangements to obtain final plans and specificiations for the construction of a new library, also for the demolition of the present building.
Aldermen H.F Farmer, C.V. Robinson, and, F. W. Dixon were opposed to the demolition, but the resolution passed.
&&&&
I did a Google search on the name "James A. Murray" and found a couple very interesting links. It turns out that Murray was something of leading light in the Canadian architectural community. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any public domain pictures of his work, so I can't include any in this article, but if you click on his name in this paragraph, you will see blog posts that show several buildings he designed. It is easy to see that he had a hand in building the present downtown library.
Murray certainly liked flat roofs and boxes. This shouldn't be surprising. It was a time when most institutions liked to pay for buildings that looked like bunkers. Take a look at the University of Guelph library or the Co-Operators building, both of which were built at the same time as the library. This was the time when "Brutalism" reigned supreme in architecture.
This was the architectural school that gave up any attempt at all to appeal to traditional building aesthetics and instead put up purely functional buildings without any attempt at decoration at all. Generally, they were square blocks with flat roofs and were made of cast concrete or monotonous brickwork. The term "brutalism" was invented by a British architectural critic who coined the term to describe an influential Swedish home named the "Villa Goth" that was built in 1950. The name was widely adopted.
Institutions---like large corporations, governments, universities, etc---adored Brutalism because it allowed them to be "hip" and "with it" while at the same time allowing them to totally dispense with any aesthetic sense and totally concentrate on controlling costs and maximizing utility. In contrast, most citizens loath the buildings.
All human beings exist embedded in a culture. This allows us to feel a sense of continuity no matter where we go in it. This cultural context is what allows people to have a feel for various things. An Arab Mosque, Daoist Temple, and European Cathedral all have design features that allow people to instantly know what culture they inhabit even though each particular element of the building is different in one way or another from every other building of that type. This is what philosophers call a "family resemblance" and what architects call a "pattern language".
Some of these design features are the result of having to deal with specific environmental conditions. Northern countries---like in Canada and Sweden---have to deal with the build-up of snow in the winter, which is why peaked roofs have been part of our traditions instead of flat ones. Other features are brought in to remind people of historical association. I posted a picture of the Pantheon earlier on in this article, as you can see below the Carnegie library incorporated elements that continued the same design tradition.
&&&&
I did a Google search on the name "James A. Murray" and found a couple very interesting links. It turns out that Murray was something of leading light in the Canadian architectural community. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any public domain pictures of his work, so I can't include any in this article, but if you click on his name in this paragraph, you will see blog posts that show several buildings he designed. It is easy to see that he had a hand in building the present downtown library.
Murray certainly liked flat roofs and boxes. This shouldn't be surprising. It was a time when most institutions liked to pay for buildings that looked like bunkers. Take a look at the University of Guelph library or the Co-Operators building, both of which were built at the same time as the library. This was the time when "Brutalism" reigned supreme in architecture.
This was the architectural school that gave up any attempt at all to appeal to traditional building aesthetics and instead put up purely functional buildings without any attempt at decoration at all. Generally, they were square blocks with flat roofs and were made of cast concrete or monotonous brickwork. The term "brutalism" was invented by a British architectural critic who coined the term to describe an influential Swedish home named the "Villa Goth" that was built in 1950. The name was widely adopted.
 |
| Villa Goth, the building that inspired the term "Brutalism" Copyleft Sebastian F, c/o the Wiki Commons |
All human beings exist embedded in a culture. This allows us to feel a sense of continuity no matter where we go in it. This cultural context is what allows people to have a feel for various things. An Arab Mosque, Daoist Temple, and European Cathedral all have design features that allow people to instantly know what culture they inhabit even though each particular element of the building is different in one way or another from every other building of that type. This is what philosophers call a "family resemblance" and what architects call a "pattern language".
Some of these design features are the result of having to deal with specific environmental conditions. Northern countries---like in Canada and Sweden---have to deal with the build-up of snow in the winter, which is why peaked roofs have been part of our traditions instead of flat ones. Other features are brought in to remind people of historical association. I posted a picture of the Pantheon earlier on in this article, as you can see below the Carnegie library incorporated elements that continued the same design tradition.
 |
| The old Carnegie library: front pillars with a dome in the back. Just like the Pantheon Photograph courtesy of Guelph Public Library Archives Sometime in the 1950s, Item C6-0-0-0-0-1231 - |
The problem with Brutalism is that it doesn't fit into our culture, it usually doesn't fit into the way the rest of the street looks, and, very often it additionally doesn't fit into our climate. But at the time that the Carnegie library was built public buildings were consciously designed to hearken back the old Temples and Palaces of old Europe. The idea was that the public sphere was above the commercial or personal. It demanded more from an architect. But in the sixties people thought that the old was stultifying and needed to be purged. Ordinary people bye-and-large didn't know where things were going, so they tended to go along with what the experts were saying. And, of course, the people paying the bills were over-joyed to have found an architectural school that designed buildings that were cheaper to build.
 |
| Front of current downtown branch, Guelph Public Library, Photograph appears courtesy of the Guelph Public Library Archives, late 1960s, Item C6-0-0-0-0-1230 - |
When James A. Murray recommended that the old Carnegie building be demolished he talked about its size, the number of front steps, the damp basement, etc. But these are non sequiturs. They are reasons to no longer use the existing building as the main library, not to tear it down. The building could have been kept as a library annex. Or it could have been re-purposed as a lecture hall or something else. If it needed it, I find it exceptionally hard to believe that it couldn't have been repaired. If the Pantheon has lasted 2,000 years, I suspect that Guelph's Carnegie library could have lasted at least another 100. What I suspect actually happened was that the library committee hired a modern architectural firm that simply didn't like the old ways of doing things and wanted to follow the latest fad. And Guelph simply followed the line of least resistance and did what they were told.
&&&&
When I started researching this story I had a vague idea about using it as a way to draw parallels to the current arguments you see about the built environment in Guelph. But the laborious process of working through a few years of the old Guelph Mercury teased out other issues, ones that I think are pretty important and rarely discussed.
A minor story about an Alderman resigning his position to protest the process where the Carnegie library was built, and, a letter to the editor by someone complaining about other people saying the building was being paid for with "blood money", opened up an entire world that has disappeared without a trace in the popular consciousness. The Johnstown Flood and the Homestead strike were as big as 9/11 and Black Lives Matter in their day. This got me thinking about other issues. Other little items jumped out at me too. A brief mention of American officers on trial for war crimes got me doing some research into the Philippines occupation. And that led to me finding out that waterboarding was being done by the US long before the "war on terror". Indeed, a note about the bomb being placed in a construction site in Niagara Falls plus the attack on Henry Clay Frick led me to learning about the international terrorist movement by Anarchists. And further research on destroying the Carnegie library opened my eyes to the scale of the threat caused by the FLQ in 1964. Can you imagine what the reaction would be today if a group was breaking into militia armories to steal weapons and explosives?
"plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose": Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr: “The more it changes, the more it’s the same thing.”People often repeat this phrase, but rarely do I think people remember to put today's issues into a proper historical context. We get all flustered and upset about things, but many of them are not much more than background noise to anyone who isn't directly affected. Ask yourself "Do I know anyone who has actually been killed by a terrorist?", then ask again "Do I know anyone who has been killed in a car accident or has been affected by a psychiatric illness?" The obvious answer will come to everyone, and then---what should be---the obvious question arises "why does society devote enormous resources to this trivial problem while fundamentally ignoring these two tremendously important ones?" (Don't get me started on climate change---.) I'd suggest that part of the problem is that almost no one ever tries to put these issues into their proper context. (Hence the need for for this on-line magazine.)
&&&&
The second issue that struck me was that the fundamental issue with tearing down the Carnegie library wasn't replacing it, per se, but rather that people were upset with what replaced it. People don't like brutalism, and it's still why they oppose new buildings again and again. Unfortunately, the government and big business are so in love with it, that people have been conditioned to fight tooth and nail against all new buildings because they know that when push comes to shove, the architectural design that will be chosen will be a big, nasty-looking, flat-roofed building block. The professional architects will come up with some groovy language about how it fits into some sort of aesthetic framework---but we all know that they built it this way because it's the cheapest way to to do it, and, the government is going to let them do it that way. Developers complain about the Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) phenomenon, but I'd argue that a lot of the time it's really No More Brutalism!
To be fair to the planning department, they have been trained by the OMB to accept this sort of development simply because they know that if they did try to force developers to build differently, they would just get dragged through an expensive OMB hearing and lose anyway. One can only hope that the recent announcement by the Liberal government that they are going to radically overhaul the OMB will finally allow planning departments to force architects to end their love affair with brutalism.
&&&&
This article was only possible because we have a library. That is where I found the microfilms of the Guelph Mercury to do the primary research. It also shows how important it is to have local news sources. Without the work of the unnamed reporters who ground out stories day after day, there would be no record at all. And I would never have known that John J. Drew resigned his seat over accepting the Carnegie money, that there were folks complaining over the "blood money", or, that a relatively famous Toronto architect, James A. Murray, was involved in the decision to tear down the old building.
This brings me to my final point. Guelph needs to support local news production. Guelph Today and the Guelph Mercury Tribune simply do not count as real news sources. We need a lot more. That's why I support Adam Donaldson's Guelph Politico through a monthly Patreon pledge. It's also why I am asking people who read the Guelph Back-Grounder to consider doing the same thing. We need to support the pioneers of alternative journalism if we are ever going to get the industry off the ground.
The Back-Grounder isn't put out regularly, so another way to support it is to just put a little money in the tip jar when you think a particular story was really good.
Also, if you are a small business or non-profit that would like to advertise in the Back-Grounder, I can accommodate that too. Email me at "thecloudwalkingowl@gmail.com" for more information.