Harvard will allow Cambridge to use the Radcliffe pottery workshop at 245 Concord Ave. as a temporary home for the Observatory Hill Branch Library, administration officials said yesterday.

Cambridge officials condemned the municipal library building on Huron Ave. March 13 because it was structurally unsafe, the Rev. Bernard Herlihy, pastor of St. Peter's parish which owns the building and the land said yesterday. City manager James L. Sullivan is negotiating with the parish for the purchase of the site so that Cambridge can build a new library building, Herlihy added.

City Councilor David Wylie said yesterday the city would be interested in leasing the University building during the construction of the new library. "My motion called for the construction people to build a 'little gem' of a library," Wylie said.

An edifice complex

The city's use of the Concord Ave. building would last up to three to five years, Lewis A. Armistead, assistant to the vice-president for community affairs, said yesterday.

The building once served as a Buildings and Grounds department office, and presently houses a pottery workshop, Burton I. Wolfman, administrative dean of Radcliffe said yesterday. "It would take an awful lot of work to make it a library," he said, adding that plans have not been made for relocating the pottery workshop.

Wolfman said city management officials have not yet decided if the building is suitable for the library. "As of yet, we've heard nothing in the way of dollars and cents," Wolfman added