A new room dedicated to the career and work of the internationally renowned architect, Charles W. Moore, has just opened in the General Libraries Architecture and Planning Library within historic Battle Hall on The University of Texas at Austin campus. The Charles W. Moore Room will house the Charles W. Moore Archives donated to the General Libraries Architectural Drawings Collection in the fall of 1996 by Lawrence, David, Steven, and Bruce Weingarten, nephews of Mr. Moore. Two adjacent rooms have also been made available to provide work and storage space for preservation activities relating to the Moore Archives.

The Charles W. Moore Archives includes watercolors, drawings, prints, material related to professional projects, slides, photographs and audio visual materials, correspondence, material related to his teaching career, books and other publications, and a group of twelve memory palaces.

The memory palaces are a group of free-standing constructions in various materials that illustrate a range of architectural concepts such as “walls that layer,” “light that plays,” “aedicules that center,” and “space that leaks in and out.” The memory palaces are approximately ten feet tall and several feet wide. Eight of the memory palaces are currently on display in the Architecture and Planning Library Reading Room in Battle Hall and another two are on permanent display in the Charles W. Moore Room.

With the exception of the books and the memory palaces mentioned above, all of the archival materials from this gift will be housed in the Charles W. Moore Room. The books will be catalogued as part of the Architecture and Planning Library, but will remain in the Charles W. Moore House, operated by the Charles W. Moore Foundation and located at 2102 Quarry Road in west Austin. The book collection consists of approximately 5,000 volumes and 1,000 issues of professional journals. The books are primarily twentieth-century imprints, mainly about Mexican, European, Japanese, American, and regional architecture, gardens, photography, history, literature, and fiction. There is also a selection of children’s pop-up books.

It is estimated that it will take several years to fully process and catalog this extensive collection of materials. Access to the Charles W. Moore Room and the materials within the Archives is by appointment only.