Even before Norman Foster presented his firm's scheme in late December to alter radically the New York Public Library's main branch, controversy swirled among scholars about plans to change Carrère & Hastings' 1897 Beaux-Arts masterpiece at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. Delay and secrecy in the design process exasperated the late Ada Louise Huxtable (page 26): in her last column in the Wall Street Journal, she said the library's proposal was “devised out of profound ignorance.” Now that Foster's plans are finally public, a rising tide of criticism may engulf a process seemingly arranged to avoid wider discussion.
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