Get Ready to Bid on This Mirrored Prefab Chock-Full of Herman Miller Furniture

The development team behind the new library in New Canaan, Connecticut, needed a private place to meet would-be donors—and an eye-catching way to raise awareness within the community. Ellen Sullivan Crovatto, head of the new library’s capital campaign, came up with a solution that not only honors the town’s role in design history, but also funnels funds toward the build.

New Canaan’s midcentury modern tradition grew out of the influence of five architects from the Harvard Graduate School of Design known as the Harvard Five—Marcel Breuer, Landis Gores, John M. Johansen, Philip Johnson, and Eliot Noyes—who lived there in the late 1940s. In their design of the new 42,000-square-foot library, Centerbrook Architects & Planners paid homage to this tradition with modern forms, stone cladding, and dramatic expanses of glass.

Reflecting the spirit of the planned facility, Crovatto proposed erecting a mirrored prefab by Estonian company ÖÖD House on the existing library’s front lawn. 

Crovatto notes that the minimalist ÖÖD House is the consummate metaphor for a library, inside and out. 

"The mirrored surface speaks to the way our library, like the best libraries in the world, is a reflection of our community," she explains. "Inside the ÖÖD House, the glass is transparent; you can see everything that surrounds you. Libraries help make facts and information transparent to the general public. That’s what libraries are about."