DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Picture yourself standing on one of Austin's four public squares. Four squares, platted out neat and deliberate back in 1893, each one a kind of civic promise to the future.
This particular square had something special waiting for it. In 1913, the Texas Legislature handed over this very site for a public library. Just handed it over.
The city accepted, and then, well, the city waited. These things take time. The building wasn't completed until 1933, and when it finally arrived, Austin had something worth looking at.
This was the most prominent public work of Hugo Kuehne, a man born right there in Austin, who also happened to be the founding dean of the University of Texas School of Architecture. So the man who helped shape how architects were trained in Texas put his own stamp on the city that raised him. The building came out in the Italian Renaissance style, which means it arrived with ambition.
And Kuehne didn't do it alone. He had some of Austin's finest craftsmen behind him. Ironworker Fortunat Wiegl.
Wood-carver Peter Mansbendel. And fresco artist Harold Jessen, who apparently went by Bubi, which is the kind of detail that makes a man real. These were craftsmen leaving their marks in iron and wood and paint on something meant to last.
The building served as Austin's main public library all the way until 1979. Decades of borrowed books, quiet afternoons, and the particular hush that settles over a room full of stories. It outlasted its working purpose, and it's still standing over that square platted long before it was ever built.
Some promises, it turns out, get kept.
What the marker says
Overlooking one of the city's four public squares platted in 1893, this site was obtained from the Texas Legislature in 1913 for a public library. Completed in 1933, this building represents the most prominent public work of Austin native Hugo Kuehne, founding dean of the University of Texas School of Architecture. Designed in the Italian renaissance style, it features the work of some of Austin's finest craftsmen, including ironworker Fortunat Wiegl, wood-carver Peter Mansbendel, and fresco artist Harold "Bubi" Jessen. It served as Austin's main public library until 1979. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark- 1993