CONSTRUCTION WORKERS will start blasting a 40-foot-deep hole in the bedrock of the Yard between Lamont and Houghton Libraries this summer to make room for the Nathan M. Pusey Library. When it is finished in 1975, the Pusey Library will be an almost completely underground, three-level addition to Harvard's library system, and the first new building in the Yard since Lamont.

It's not easy to design a building for the Yard, since it is an almost sacred area for anyone even remotely connected with Harvard, and disrupting its austere appearance would be akin to heresy. When Lamont Library was built in 1947, the public was assured that it would solve Harvard's library space problems and would not disrupt the Yard. "With a steel frame and a brick exterior, the new library will outwardly preserve the conservative architecture of the Yard, while the interior will be of modernistic design," the Crimson wrote on June 27, 1947.

But by 1966, Harvard's existing libraries were becoming inadequate again. Officials of the University Library--a catch-all phrase for all of Harvard's libraries--initiated a ten-year planning study on projected growth and book space. They published a thick pamphlet, full of zooming prediction curves for how many books the library was going to add and how much money it needed. The pamphlet's major recommendation was that a two-million volume addition be built to house parts of the Central Collections--that is, the books in Widener, Houghton, and Lamont Libraries.

President Pusey authorized the Library to begin a preliminary study for building a four-story, completely underground new library, with the stipulation that the appearance of the Yard be maintained intact after the library was built.

Douglas Bryant, who was University Librarian at that time, started raising money for the new library. It took him five years, until Commencement of 1971, to raise the full construction costs. Robert R. Walsh, assistant University Librarian for Building Planning, says that the money was hard to raise because of the recession and because ever-increasing building costs forced the library's budget up from $3 million to the final $8 million figure.

BOK ASSUMED the presidency in the summer of 1971, and, together with Library officials, decided to investigate closely all site possibilities for the new library. It was obvious that it had to be in close proximity to Widener, Houghton, and Lamont, since it would be essentially an extention of those libraries' collections. However, its exact location was a matter to be handled with considerable caution, since it would be the first new building in the Yard since Lamont was built 25 years ago.

Bok also decided to consider the possibility of making a small portion of the library above ground, so that it would be a less forbidding place in which to work. Bok and the Corporation then decided upon a name--the Nathan M. Pusey Library--in tribute to the outgoing president.

In September 1971, the University commissioned the Cambridge architectural firm Hugh Stubbins and Associates to do the site study for the library. Stubbins had designed three previous Harvard buildings: the Loeb Drama Center and two Medical School buildings--the Countway Library and the New England Regional Primate Center--as well as several college libraries. He had been among the final candidates for the Science Center design contract.

Stubbins says that his major concern in the site study was "allowing future options for maximum expansions." The University can--if the need arises--double the library's size after it is built through more underground construction. The University also has the option of tearing down the former President's House at 17 Quincy Street and building an above ground wing of the library.

Bok says that although razing the President's House "is something we've considered, it won't come up for a long time--1985 or 1990--and we hope that by that time new technology in the area of miniaturizing archives will have made further expansion of the library unnecessary."

STUBBINS' SITE study apparently satisfied Bok and the Library officials, because they rehired him in the spring of 1972--after interviewing several other firms--to fully design the library.

Bok made it clear to Stubbins that the Pusey Library should disturb the Yard's appearance as little as possible. He was especially concerned with the view of the library from the Widener-Memorial Church quadrangle, since Commencement is held in front of Memorial Church and graduating seniors and alumni might be upset about an ungainly building intruding on their view of the ceremonies.

"They didn't tell me how it should look," Stubbins says, "but they gave us a thorough program and explicit objectives. We never considered an above ground building. We didn't want to change the Yard that much, and there's really no place to put an above ground building unless the President's House is removed. If that's removed, well then that's another ballpark."

Stubbins submitted his final design of the library in February of this year. Bok was scheduled to approve the design on February 20, but decided to delay his approval a week. The reasons for the postponement were not revealed; Bok would only say that he "wanted to look into all the alternatives and serve aesthetic as well as functional needs," and would not specify what details of the design were in dispute.

Clearly, Bok was still not completely sure that the library would blend visually with the Yard. The Pusey Library will be the first new building under his presidency, although he supervised the design of several buildings while he was dean of the Law School. The two most recent buildings at Harvard--Gund Hall and the Science Center--have raised a huge storm of criticism from students and faculty.