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1990–1992
The change: In 1990 the South Bend Public Library was officially renamed the St. Joseph County Public Library — the name catching up with a service that had long since run past the city line — and in 1992 a new Main Library was dedicated, in the library's own words, "in its original location on 304 S. Main Street." What "new" meant on the ground is told most plainly by the architects who undid it a generation later: Robert A.M. Stern Architects, renovating the building in 2019–2022, described the downtown library's succession as a small Victorian structure, "followed by a modernist building in the late 1950s that was then concealed by a larger addition in the 1990s." The Spiro building was not demolished; it was wrapped. The enlarged Main of 1992 — the building the 2021 renovation would measure at some 116,000 square feet — served the county for the next twenty-seven years.
Sources:
- St. Joseph County Public Library, "History of the St. Joseph County Public Library" — the 1990 renaming and the 1992 dedication at 304 S. Main Street.
- Robert A.M. Stern Architects, project account of the South Bend Main Library renovation (via OfficeInsight, December 2022) — the Victorian structure, the late-1950s modernist building, and the 1990s addition that concealed it.