Chapin Library of Rare Books, Williams College

Author's Comments

The Chapin holds one of the more remarkable collections of rare books in the country, and the building itself is more reserved than what it contains. That reserve is part of why I come. The library sits within the larger architectural conversation of the Williams campus, where Georgian brick and later additions speak across small distances to each other, and the northern Berkshires rise behind everything like a held note. Afternoon light is what this campus is built for. The brick warms. The white trim sharpens. Late September into mid October is the window I keep returning to, when the maples have started to turn but the light has not yet gone thin and winter-blue. I tend to work the exteriors first and let the architecture sit against the ridgeline, because the relationship between building and mountain is the actual subject here. A wide frame that includes the Purple Valley behind a Georgian roofline does more work than any single facade. The Stone Hill trail behind the Clark is worth the walk before you leave. From elevation the campus reads as a pattern - rooflines, treetops, the soft geometry of a small college held inside a larger landscape. That is the photograph I did not know I was looking for the first time I came up here, and it is the one I keep trying to make better.

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