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Most Endangered Places
2004

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Most Endangered Places for 2004

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. MEMORIAL LIBRARY

901 G STREET, NW

STEWARD: DC GOVERNMENT

UPDATE: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library was awarded Landmark status by the Historic Preservation Review Board in June of 2007. Long-deferred maintenance has started to take place and, for now, the building seems to have a brighter future. DCPL will continue to monitor this important modernist DC Landmark.

The District of Columbia’s central public library, designed by Modern master Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and completed in 1972, is the only building in Washington, DC by any of the ‘big three’ (Mies, Wright, and Le Corbusier) Modernist architects. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library has stood as the only monument to Dr. King in the nation’s capital for the past 30 years. It holds special significance to the millions of Washingtonians who have come to the library over the past decades to participate in a wide variety of programs and activities, and is a center of community life in the District. The library, the only one ever designed by Mies, was constructed with a flexible interior plan and the capacity to add a fifth story when needed. These measures were taken to ensure the building could continue to serve its intended purpose for approximately 150 years. But because of three decades of lack of preventive maintenance and system upgrades, and despite a concept plan for an extensive renovation that would cost half as much as a new building, the District government’s plans for the library are uncertain. Currently there is no immediate threat to the building. If the building were sold with no landmark protection a private owner would be able to tear the building down or modify it with no input from the community.

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