Can You Teach Old Buildings New Tricks

The Perry- Castaneda Library (PCL) is a massive Brutalist structure that opened in 1977 to house and feature the expansive print collections of the University of Texas Libraries. Over the last five years, books stacks have shrunk and dynamic teaching and learning spaces have arisen in their place. The transformation of PCL has happened over a series of project phases. Each project is linked to previous ones to ensure continuity in design integrity and architectural coherence, but the projects are not all part of a single larger renovation effort. Instead, phases are designed and built as funding allows which means that each phase must be treated as if it could be the final change for some period of time.