Design
The lead architect of the project was Edward F. Neild. Truman had picked Neild in the 1930s to design the renovation of the Independence and construction of the Kansas City Jackson County Courthouses after Truman was impressed with Neild's work on the Caddo Parish, Louisiana, Courthouse in Shreveport, Louisiana. Neild was among the architects of the Truman White House reconstruction.
Neild died on July 6, 1955, at the Kansas City Club while working on the design.
Truman had initially wanted the building to resemble his grandfather Solomon Young's house in Grandview, Missouri.
In response to a New York Times review that recalled Frank Lloyd Wright influences in the library's horizontal design, Truman was reported to have said, "It's got too much of that fellow in it to suit me."
Built on a hill overlooking the Kansas City skyline on land donated by the City of Independence, the Truman Library was dedicated on July 6, 1957, in a ceremony which included the Masonic Rites of Dedication; those attending the ceremony included former President Herbert Hoover, Chief Justice Earl Warren, and former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
A $23 million dollar renovation of the entire facility was completed in 2001 on a design by architects Gould Evans. The changes included the extensive use of glass in the relatively windowless structure and significantly altering the space between Truman's grave and the museum.
Read more about this topic: Harry S. Truman Presidential Library And Museum
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“Delay always breeds danger; and to protract a great design is often to ruin it.”
—Miguel De Cervantes (1547–1616)
“Westerners inherit
A design for living
Deeper into matter—
Not without due patter
Of a great misgiving.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.”
—John Adams (1735–1826)