(By Elizabeth Tuico) Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. maintains the world’s largest Shakespeare collection, providing a valuable resource for studying Shakespeare and his world. The facility underwent an extensive renovation and reopened to the public on June 21, 2024.

I shower a welcome on ye; welcome all. - William Shakespeare

The Folger's Grand Reopening: Ribbon Cutting Ceremony (youtube.com)

Folger Shakespeare Library is one of my favorite places in the District of Columbia. While the complex remained closed for almost four years during the renovation, I missed my frequent visits to the Elizabethan theater to see plays and enjoy baroque chamber music. I often wondered how this impressive scholarly collection ended up one block from the U.S. Capitol and not in England, near William Shakespeare’s birthplace.

Why house the collection in Washington?

Americans can thank Henry Clay Folger and his wife Emily Jordan Folger for this thoughtful, thorough, and impressive Shakespeare collection. This diligent couple bonded over the admiration for the bard and began purchasing rare manuscripts. After graduating from Amherst College in 1879, Mr. Folger attended Columbia Law School. He began working at Standard Oil in 1881, eventually serving as president of the Standard Oil Company of New York. (This entity would later become the Mobil Oil Corporation.) Emily earned an undergraduate and a master’s degree from Vassar College focusing on the works of Shakespeare. The couple did not have any children. They poured their energy into their love of Shakespeare which also extends to a wide range of other disciplines – history and politics, theology and exploration, law, and the arts – from the early modern period (1500–1750).

By the early 1920’s, the Folger’s collection was so large it required a permanent home. Potential sites included Amherst, New York City, and Stratford-upon-Avon. The couple decided on a plot of land near the Capitol in Washington, D.C., discovered during a train layover at Union Station on the way to Hot Springs, GA in 1918. At this time, Washington was a sleepy, small town. It took nine years for Mr. Folger to purchase the townhouses known as Grant's Row where the library sits today. By placing the collection in Washington, D.C., the Folgers made a statement, gambling that the District of Columbia would become a civic and cultural world capital.

The Folger collection began in 1889 with Mr. Folger’s first purchase of a rare book, a copy of the 1685 Fourth Folio of Shakespeare’s plays. By 1932, the Folger collection featured 200,000 items which made their way to the new library.

Emily Folger wrote that her husband believed that Shakespeare “is one of our best sources, one of the wells from which we Americans draw our national thought, our faith and our hope.” This correlation between Shakespeare and America is the reason the Folger Shakespeare Library resides in the nation’s capital.

In 1930, Amherst College, Mr. Folger’s alma mater, became the library’s official trustee. That arrangement continues today as the Trustees of Amherst College manage the institution’s endowment.

Henry and Emily Folger Build a Library (youtube.com)

A complete building overhaul

Completed in 1932, Folger Shakespeare Library was designed by Paul Cret, a prolific and influential French architect who taught at the University of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, Henry Clay Folger only lived long enough to see construction start in 1930. He never enjoyed the completed project.

In addition to space for books, The Folgers requested the design of an Elizabethan theater in the original building. Initially, academic lectures were the cornerstone of theater programming, but improvements in the 1970’s paved the way for professional theatrical productions. (This jewel box remains one of the city’s hidden gems.) Mr. Folger also hired sculptor John Gregory to design the Shakespearean reliefs that adorn the building's facade.

In 1969, the National Register of Historic Places included the Folger Shakespeare Library in its list. In 2018, the Register added the library’s Tudor interiors and Elizabethan theater. By the 1980’s, the library underwent its first major renovation. Washington, D.C.-based architectural firm Hartman Cox completed an addition at the rear of the building and interior space reconfigurations, as well as providing air conditioning to the entire structure.

By 2020, the 34,000 SF complex was ready for a much-needed overhaul. Led by Philadelphia-based KieranTimberlake, the renovation adds new exhibition galleries, a learning lab, research spaces, expanded gift shop, offices, and social gathering spots. The renovation allowed the Folger Library to add much needed front-of-house space while retaining the original back-of-house scholarly infrastructure.

Regular visitors will notice a completely new building entry sequence. KieranTimberlake got around the complex’s small footprint by digging underneath the original structure to create a 6,000 SF addition. During construction of this element, the team excavated over 13,740 cubic yards (about 20,000 tons) of earth, bringing the new slab below the existing foundation in places, without conventional underpinning. Instead, steel framing supported the building’s façade. With this approach, Cret’s original stripped-down classical elevations remained untouched.

The new entry addresses ADA issues (which plagued the original structure), allowing for easier wheelchair access with organically conceived ramps and walkways. OLIN Studio designed a memorial garden and lush landscaping details for this new entryway which leads to the Adams Pavilion. Patrons enjoy lavender, Narcissus daffodils and rosemary in the gardens — plants often mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays. (And the scent is extraordinary…)

The addition required a complete overhaul of the building’s HVAC system. In the beginning, two coal-fired boilers located below the theater originally provided heat. Steam heat later replaced this system. Forty years ago, the Hartman-Cox project introduced air conditioning. KieranTimberlake’s new HVAC system employs 18 different air handlers and a chilled-water loop which should be easier to maintain. Providing displaced air below the theater seats required coring the structural slab.

Previously housing exhibitions, the great hall now serves food and drink in a new café. The architectural team uncovered the windows in this room by removing panels that highlight one of the earliest uses of aluminum as an ornament. Construction required the entire Shakespearean collection to relocate offsite, which allowed the Folger staff to complete a monumental task: bar-coding each book which had never been done before.

Visitors now enjoy two new exhibit halls in the below-grade addition. The main exhibit explores the 82 First Folios of Shakespeare, a 1623 publication considered one of the most important books in the history of publishing. The library owns the largest collection of Shakespeare folios in the world.

A Tour of the Reopened Folger | Part 1 (youtube.com)

What’s new.

Folger Shakespeare Library is now fully ADA accessible, and elevators reach every level of the building. In addition to the café, there are more restrooms to accommodate scholars and patrons. Funding for the entire project came from a $500,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and private donors including Richard L. Adams & family, Jacqueline Mars, and Stuart & Mimi Rose. 

Learning Lab

This new educational lab provides programming for all ages. Children enjoy summer camp activities and creative ways to connect with Shakespeare. Teachers benefit from lectures and training sessions. Other programs include community play readings, poetry development, playwriting, songwriting, seminars, demonstrations, and workshops led by world-class materials researchers and artists.

Cloud of Illumination Light Sculpture by Anke Neumann

A prominent component of the Adams Pavilion, the new public wing at the complex, is a two-story light sculpture. Created by German artist Anke Neumann, this glowing ornament floats midair next to the stairs from the new lobby to the theater and great hall. Made from 250 hand-made individual paper components, the work extends 15 feet from end to end. More than a hundred bundles of optical fibers support and illuminate the paper shapes. Together, the materials add up to almost four miles.

Entry to the library and museum is free, while theater tickets, gift shop sales and suggested admission contributions help fund operations which will go up to around $30 million a year to sustain the renovated facility. Earned income covers 16% of operational costs, along with 16% through donations, and the remainder by the library’s $460 million endowment.

The result of this $80.5 million renovation is a more modern structure that maintains the overall design intent of the original architect: to create a marble building which reads like a book. The renovation is an excellent example of how an institution can evolve while adhering to historic preservation criteria.

 Folger Shakespeare Library

201 East Capitol Street, SE
Washington, D.C. 20003

 Sundays: 11 am – 6 pm*
Mondays: Closed
Tuesday and Wednesday: 11 am – 6 pm*
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday: 11 am – 9 pm

*Extended evening hours on performance days.

 RENOVATION TEAM

Architect: KieranTimberlake

Landscape Architect: OLIN Studio

Engineers: Silman (structural); Sorba Engineering (civil); Altieri (MEP, fire protection)

Consultants:
Studio Joseph (exhibition design); Shen Milsom & Wilke (acoustics); Tillotson Design Associates (lighting); Pentagram (graphic design and wayfinding)

General Contractor: Gilbane Building Company

Elizabeth Tuico owns Rebel Road Creative. She often writes about buildings for her A/E/C clients.