Malden Public Library

library exterior

Malden Public Library

Malden, MA

One of H.H. Richardson’s final commissions was what some say was the finest of his public buildings: the Converse Memorial Library dedicated to the memory of Frank Converse by his parents in 1885. This stately brownstone building in Malden has since been expanded with multiple additions and is an important part of the civic and cultural life of the city. The original building includes an elegant reading room with adjacent art galleries that display generations of locally and internationally significant works, many of which originated in Malden.

Mills Whitaker Architects was retained to convert a portion of the 1885 basement into an archive facility with compact, mobile shelving for dense storage of books and historic documents. Adjacent deep shelving will accommodate furnishings and other collections while flat files will store important drawings and maps. A dedicated HVAC system with
temperature and humidity controls will preserve these collections. We have also supported the work of our HVAC engineer to review the campus physical plant by providing a comprehensive set of floor plans that illustrate the current layout of the original structure and its three subsequent additions.

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