A New Era for a Campus Icon

With its stately limestone exterior, towering stained-glass windows, vaulted ceilings and intricate carvings, the Charles Deering Memorial Library has graced Northwestern’s Evanston campus for nearly a century.

Last fall — following a 16-month closure for major renovations — Deering Library reopened to students, faculty and visitors. The building may look the same on the outside, but a new era has begun after aesthetic and functional updates to the library’s interior.

“The Northwestern University Libraries, including Deering, are a dynamic nexus that fosters learning, research and creativity,” says Xuemao Wang, dean of Libraries and the Charles Deering McCormick University Librarian. “As we look to the future, one of our top priorities is ensuring that our facilities and services align with the University’s evolving needs. The renovation of Deering Library helps us accomplish this goal beautifully.”

The improvements, designed by HBRA Architects, preserve Deering Library’s original architecture while increasing accessibility for visitors and enhancing spaces for study, collaboration and engagement with library resources.

The renovation focused on three spaces: the Eloise W. Martin Reading Room, the Richard C. Devereaux Foundation Reading Room (formerly the Music Listening Center) and the third-floor lobby. These spaces now feature restored woodwork, furnishings and flooring as well as retrofitted historic lighting, technology upgrades and new furniture.  

The light-filled Martin Reading Room, which has long been a popular area for quiet study, can now seat 176 people — 40 more than before. Interior bookshelves have been removed to create space for additional study tables, chairs and comfortable lounge seating. New wiring and electrical outlets have been installed, so visitors can charge their devices more conveniently too.

Meanwhile, Deering’s transformed third-floor lobby now houses the Sandi Lynn Riggs Gallery, which will showcase Northwestern’s archival and special collections. Artificial overhead lighting that mimics sunlight without causing ultraviolet light damage to rare books and manuscripts makes it possible to put more library materials on display.  

The Richard C. Devereaux Foundation Reading Room serves as both a reading room and a technology-enabled event space that can accommodate up to 150 people. Photo Credit: Matthew Gilson

The Devereaux Room has been reconfigured to serve as both a reading room and a technology-enabled event space that can accommodate up to 150 people. Flexible furniture will allow the room to be used for open study, large-group meetings, public lectures and other special events.

The renovations embrace the library’s historic design by architect James Gamble Rogers, who modeled the building after King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, England, in the collegiate Gothic style. With capacity for 500,000 volumes, Deering Library met an urgent need for library storage when it first opened in 1933. Its traditional architecture and ornate decoration — from stained-glass windows depicting President Abraham Lincoln and Shawnee chief Tecumseh to busts of poet William Shakespeare and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau — were meant to inspire all who entered. 

The building was named to honor Charles Deering, a philanthropist and agricultural equipment magnate whose bequest underwrote the original construction. Today Charles Deering’s great-grandson, Stephen M. Strachan, chairs the Northwestern University Libraries Board of Governors.

“For more than 90 years, Deering Library has inspired learning and discovery at Northwestern,” Strachan says. “I’m proud of my family’s legacy of support for this institution and thrilled with the renovation, which equips the library to thrive as a hub for intellectual and community engagement for many years to come.” 

The renovation project was funded entirely by donor gifts, including lead contributions from the late Leslie Cameron Devereaux ’64; Steve ’69 ’70 MBA and Rosemary Mack; Nancy McCormick and Ray Rasco; Dee ’82 and Colin McKechnie ’83 MBA; Peter ’60 and Joan McKee; Sandi Lynn Riggs ’65; Stephen M. Strachan; the Xu family; and other members of the Libraries Board of Governors.