After last year’s heated debate, the Memorial Union’s Browsing Library will remain in tact — for the most part.

“They are going to create a little foyer so there is a quiet transition area,” said Kathy Svec, MU marketing director. “It’s so there’s a real break before you enter the Browsing Library.”

Amy Thomsen, an English instructor who campaigned to keep the Browsing Library and the Union’s Chapel, took a walk through the Browsing Library the other day. She didn’t mind the minor modification.

“I am extremely glad they didn’t get rid of the Browsing Library and Chapel,” Thomsen said.

RDG Bessard Dikis Architects of Des Moines designed the new foyer to reflect the architecture of Gold Star Hall, which lies directly above the Browsing Library and the Chapel. The original architect of the MU, W.T. Proudfoot, designed Gold Star Hall as a tribute to Iowa State veterans who have died in foreign wars.

Svec said Proudfoot placed the library and Chapel below the memorial as a symbol. “He felt as though learning and education and freedom of religion were the underpinnings of democracy as we know it in America,” she said.

Proudfoot never made an obvious visual connection between the two, Svec said. “If you were in the library you’d have no clue you were below Gold Star Hall. The architects thought they’d make a real visual relationship between the browsing library and Gold Star Hall.”

The “arched door” which used to be the Browsing Library’s entrance will now be used for the entrance to the Chapel from inside the library.

Wooden pillars that reflect Gold Star Hall’s stone pillars will be placed in the new foyer. The foyer will also have a vaulted ceiling like Gold Star Hall.