A view from back in 2010 looking south with the 1933 Austin History Center building in the foreground and the 1979 John Henry Faulk Central Library just behind it — while the newer building used similarly-colored materials in order to compliment the older building, they couldn’t look more different in all the other ways that count. Image: Wikimedia Commons
While downtown Austin’s new Central Library rakes in the accolades for its grand design by equally-acclaimed Texas architects Lake Flato, the former central workhorse of our public library system, built in 1979 and renamed in honor of late humorist and Austinite John Henry Faulk in 1996, now sits with empty shelves — at least for the moment — at 800 Guadalupe Street, just a block south of the 1933 library headquarters it replaced, which now serves as the home of the Austin History Center.
Click for a larger view. Images: Wikimedia Commons / Flickr Creative Commons / Carlos Lowry
And you couldn’t pick three more different buildings if you tried. The new library is whimsical, the 1933 library is elegant, and the 1979 library is, well…austere.
The former Faulk Central Library at dusk. Image: Flickr Creative Commons / Carlos Lowry
Considering the current revival of Brutalist architecture in the popular imagination, it’s understandable if you’d file away this imposingly cantilevered three-story bone-white concrete structure alongside something like the J. Edgar Hoover Building at first glance — but the modernist architecture historians at Docomomo International explain that the Faulk Library is better understood as an example of the architectural movement known as New Formalism, meaning that the building shares at least few things in common with Cambridge Tower, however improbable that may seem.
The LBJ Presidential Library on the UT campus. Image: Library of Congress
But Cambridge Tower is a particularly elegant take on the style, and you’ll reach a better understanding of the Faulk building and its connection to New Formalism by comparing it instead with the 1971 Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library designed for the University of Texas Campus by renowned Chicago architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill — both buildings employ the New Formalist bent toward “modern monumentality,” symmetry, and classically-inspired but restrained ornamentation.
The 1976 “Eagle II” sculpture by artist David Deming is located outside the library’s main entrance. Image: Public Art Archive
Look closely and you’ll notice the exterior surfaces of the Faulk building aren’t actually raw, unfinished concrete — it’s been sandblasted to soften its presentation and create texture, though the effect on the structure’s overall appearance is the sort of thing you only really notice once someone tells you.
The library’s designers, local architecture outfit Jessen Associates, also brought us the wonderful former Palmer Auditorium, the underrated Teacher Retirement System of Texas Headquarters, and the really quite awful Ashbel Smith Hall, imploded in 2018 for the Indeed Tower project. In fact, the Faulk Library seems like a more successful execution of the Ashbel tower’s design, its recessed windows and other elements of spare concrete texture working much better on a building that’s long instead of tall.
An illustration of the 1979 Central Library made for Jessen Associates by illustrator Don Oelfke. Image: Austin History Center
You’ll find a lot of interesting details inside the Faulk building — the grand staircase ascending its central concourse and the charming pergola of carved animal heads suspended above the children’s section are particularly notable bits:
Images: Austin History Center / ALSC Blog
But since you can’t see these and other interior elements from the street, we’re happy to hear our local chapter of Docomomo International at Mid Tex Mod will host a virtual tour of the former Faulk Central Library later this month on Saturday, October 24:
You can find more details on the tour at the organization’s site as the event draws near, but until then, you might enjoy this vintage footage of the 1996 dedication ceremony for the library’s renaming in memory of John Henry Faulk, featuring live music and hosted by legendary Austin humorist Cactus Pryor:
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