The New Folger Library

Also: The man who taught America to swim, the art of revision, Franz Schubert’s songs of grief, “Chinatown” at 50, and more.

Source: Folger Shakespeare Library

The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. closed for renovations in January 2020. It has now re-opened with two new exhibition halls, two new gardens, a café, and other new spaces following a nearly $81 million renovation. The 82 copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio, which were previously available only to scholars, will now be on permanent display for all visitors. Philip Kennicott reports on the renovations in The Washington Post:

Symbolically, the faux-Tudor Great Hall, with its high ceilings, tall windows, dark wood paneling and the two seals representing the United States and Elizabethan England, represents not just the presumption of its American creator, Henry Folger, to be a steward of Anglo-Saxon culture, but the hope that Shakespeare, and the Folger Shakespeare Library, would weave the nation’s political, civic and cultural life into a harmonious and erudite unity.

Like other buildings nearby, including the Capitol, the Folger was landlocked; to expand, the architects had to go underground. That meant a big dig, and an opportunity to attend to issues like accessibility and things often invisible to the public: HVAC, fire suppression, mechanical systems and security. The entire collection — more than four miles of books and other materials — had to be moved off-site, and for more than a year the building’s facade was suspended on steel framing while the new spaces were being constructed.

“The investment was massive,” says Folger Director Michael Witmore. “But it feels good now that the collections are almost back in the building to say, you know, while the patient was open on the table, we did everything we could do.”

The most significant change is the new underground gallery space, approached by gentle ramps through two new gardens (designed by the Olin Studio) at the east and west ends of the building.

“People thought we were a bank, and we were closed,” says Witmore, standing at the top of the ramp that leads to the new west entrance, with Cret’s oblong building, both a memorial and a functioning library, in front of him. Cret’s design, a stripped-down classicism that feels lean, elegant, formal and austere — like a bank — hasn’t been changed in any essentials. It still sits on a plinth, like a temple, with its distinctive bas-relief depictions of famous plays arrayed at the ideal level for viewing from your car window.

But visitors are now invited to enter through an underground exhibition hall that includes a rotating display of the Folger’s collection, including the 82 First Folios arrayed on shelves like treasures in a vault, or corpses in a morgue. They rest under dim light with an interactive label system that highlights their significance — the most expensive, the latest acquired, copies once owned by women — including the Folger’s own idiosyncratic system for ordering them by importance. For the opening exhibition, Folio No. 1 is on view separately, open to the page that made it, for Henry Folger, “the most precious book in the world,” a handwritten inscription from the London publisher, William Jaggard, that includes the all-important publication date, 1623.

Here’s more from Sophia Hall in The Georgetowner on the new exhibits:

Though the highlight of the library’s expanded exhibition space is the display of all 82 copies of the Folger’s first folios (the first published collection of all Shakespeare’s plays), the other exhibits will equally fascinate visitors of all ages. Demonstrations at the custom-made printing press, “light printing” with magnetic blocks with Shakespearean language, and duels with friends using Shakespearean insults like “fly-bitten” and “maggot-pie” are just a few of the interactive ways that visitors can engage with the collection and the works of William Shakespeare. In order to meet younger guests at their level, exhibition designers literally placed more kid-friendly puzzle and spy games at a lower eye line. Greg Prickman, Director of Collections of Exhibitions, emphasized these initiatives to make the library “a space for all ages.”

In addition to new Shakespeare-focused exhibits, the library also spotlights rare books that are equally as influential on popular culture as the Bard. The “Imprints in Time” exhibition displays galley proofs of the “Lord of the Rings” series with J.R.R. Tolkien’s handwriting, an advance press copy of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and the first European printing of Confucius.

Three commissioned works of art by contemporary artists will offer visitors creative entry points through which to consider Shakespeare. US Poet Laureate Rita Dove’s new poem, engraved along the garden path down to the West Entrance, encourages visitors to “Clear your calendars” as they get transfixed by the magic of the musical-like space.

The first production at the Folger Theatre since its renovation, a version of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” perfectly mirrors the transformation of the space. Though this production ends on Sunday, June 23, look out for “Romeo & Juliet” next season.

If you’re headed to D.C. this summer, perhaps you should add the Folger to your itinerary if you haven’t already.

---

Speaking of D.C., the National Capital Planning Commission turned 100 earlier this month. In a two-part series at Patowmack Packet, Michael Auslin looks at why D.C. looks the way it does: “Anyone who visits the Capital sees immediately that it is a planned city, not an organic growth like London or Jerusalem. But who decides what Washington is, what those tourists see and what Washingtonians have to live with? Few visitors, and maybe not so many District residents themselves, likely know that Washington looks the way it does thanks to a small number of federal and municipal bodies. Among them, one of the most important is the National Capital Planning Commission, (NCPC), which celebrated its centenary on June 6, 2024. These groups make the sometimes lauded and sometimes controversial decisions that, in the words of the NCPC, ‘translate the country’s democratic ideals into physical form.’ Their visions and decisions reflect the changing state of the country, its collective or contested history, its expectations for the future, and its never-satisfied feelings about the present.”