A Tale of Two Buildings

You're looking at the back side of the downtown Carnegie Library, designed by Calvin Kiessling and built in 1905. It was added onto in 1967. The newer structure butts up to the old one, and is called the Penrose Library. I recently learned that it took the place of the Marksheffel Garage (see bottom photo). The 1967 building, though it has some cool Midcentury Modern vibes, bears no stylistic relationship to the original 1905 structure. The second photo of this post shows the latest improvement to the Penrose Library, about a decade old. As you can see, the curved lines mimic the original building's rotunda. I can appreciate the architect's attempt to finally marry the 1967 structure to the 1905 one. It's an improvement, I suppose, though I wish the city had the vision in 1967 not to tear down the Marksheffel Garage but instead to rehab and repurpose it.