{"nrhp_refnum":"72001154","name":"Furness Library","other_names":["Furness Library,School of Fine Arts","Henry Charles Lea Librar"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"34th St. below Walnut on University of Pennsylvania campus","address_restricted":false,"city":"Philadelphia","county":"Philadelphia","state":"PA","lat":39.951581555000075,"lon":-75.19276549799997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1972-05-19","is_nhl":true,"nhl_designated_date":"1985-02-04","areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A large red brick, brownstone and terra cotta library building on the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia, erected in 1888 and designed by the firm of Furness, Evans and Co.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the building is one of the few surviving public facilities designed by Frank Furness and is significant for its planning logic, its design vigor, and its role in the development of functional design. It is described as a building worth preserving on its own merits, with its entrance, stair tower and reading room arranged to organize circulation.","narrative":"Erected in 1888 by the Philadelphia firm of Furness, Evans and Co., this large library on the University of Pennsylvania campus is built of red brick, brownstone and terra cotta. Its entrance porch, stair tower and apse-ended reading room were arranged along a line that responded to Woodland Avenue, which once crossed the main campus block. A tile-roofed reading room sits behind the tower, lit from above, while a series of great arches to the south once enclosed the stacks and were designed to be extended. The Duhring Wing, added by the same firm in the twentieth century, prevented that southern growth but matches the older work. The building is regarded as one of the few surviving public works of Frank Furness, an architect who shaped much of Philadelphia in the late nineteenth century. Its stair hall anticipated circulation concepts that later architects would develop, and its use of steel, cast iron, structural glass and brick was technically notable. Its reshaping of the Venetian Gothic idiom into a personal style is also considered significant.","period_of_significance":"1888","architect_builder":"Furness, Evans and Co. (architects)","architectural_style":"Venetian Gothic idiom","criteria":[],"status_note":"Altered by the addition of a new second-level floor and the Duhring Wing; the building remains in use as a library.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:30.775201-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/72001154.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/72001154/c3ea906cb2-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/72001154/c3ea906cb2-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"MatthewMarcucci at English Wikipedia","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FisherLibrary.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">MatthewMarcucci at English Wikipedia</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FisherLibrary.JPG"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"78002457","name":"University of Pennsylvania Campus Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/pennsylvania/university-of-pennsylvania-campus-historic-district-78002457/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71997280","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_Fine_Arts_Library","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5454798"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/philadelphia/furness-library-72001154/"}