Feeling underwater in the library?  Perhaps it’s the decor. Over the summer Vassar’s Harry Roseman transformed the accessible/after-hours entrance of the Library situated across from Chicago Hall with a permanent mixed-media installation entitled “North Entrance.”  The project involved a complete repainting of the space, renovated by architect Barry Price around a new elevator core, with a vibrant, undulating blue and green pattern somewhat reminiscent of David Hockney’s pool paintings,  as well as a sculptural intervention of painted iron extensions to the staircase balusters that continue the flux and fluidity of the wall pattern.

According to the artist, one impetus behind his spirited design is to help people with physical challenges feel less constrained by earth and gravity:  “I see this installation as metaphorically Air, Light, and Water…. My hope is that walking into this space will momentarily make the person entering feel less heavily grounded to the earth, and to make the architecture seem lighter and more fluid.” Another ambition is that the space will continue to seem fresh and new to the beholder: “One experiences something only once for the first time.  I am hopeful for those using this entrance on a regular basis that some of that initial reaction will hold and that it will continue to resonate in a number of ways over time.”

To enter the space is indeed to step outside of the ordinary into a floating world tinged by imagination and new ways of seeing the familiar, which is what, after all, libraries are much about.  Assisting Professor Roseman in the installation were Vassar alums Christina Teaglia ’97, Charlotte Terry ’12, and Juliana Halpert ’12, and artist Eric Zimmerman.