William Rawn Associates

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An open-plan, single-room branch library lends books and serves as a place for a young and diverse community to come together.

Architect William Rawn is often asked about the 85-foot-long undulating glass facade at his recently completed Ruth Caplin Theatre on the campus of the University of Virginia (UVA), in Charlottesville. People wonder, he says, if it was inspired by Thomas Jefferson’s serpentine brick walls that are part of the so-called Lawn—the complex of 18th-century structures and grounds at the university’s historic heart.

Awe is a concept central to Judaism, and awe is the feeling you get as you enter Temple Beth Elohim, a Reform synagogue in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

“True Science thrives best in glass houses, where everyone can look in,” wrote Nobel Prize–winning molecular biologist Max Perutz. Boston-based William Rawn Associates, Architects (WRA) took this sentiment to heart in the design of their Pritzker Science Center at Milton Academy, which puts visibility, in every sense of the word, front and center.

Anyone who doubts the relevance of libraries in the age of e-readers, amazon.com, and the iPad should visit the new central branch of the Cambridge Public Library (CPL), in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Mattapan Branch of the Boston Public Library was designed to honor the mayor’s initiative to bring important civic buildings to Boston’s diverse neighborhoods.