The new Boston Public Library Allston Branch by Machado and Silvetti Associates is one of twenty-seven branches in the city’s library system.
Differing from the main library, these local facilities provide an important outreach to Boston’s neighborhoods, often serving as community centers in addition to their role housing books. This building type has, in the time since H. H. Richardson’s designs for various small libraries in New England, been characterized by a casual expression that is less authoritarian than other civic buildings, instead projecting an image of accessibility and democratic values.
Text courtesy of Machado and Silvetti Associates Photographs courtesy of Michael Moran