St. Louis’ Central Library: One of the world’s most beautiful
From the Saint Louis Public Library website:
Recently, the St. Louis Public Library’s Central Library was named one of the 12 most beautiful and historical libraries in the world. As part of this honor, Central Library’s Great Hall is featured for May in the 2005 Renaissance Library Calendar. The calendar is in its fifth year of publication. It contains libraries from Austria, Croatia, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The St. Louis Public Library is one of three U.S. libraries featured in the distinguished publication. The Suzzallo Library at the University of Washington in Seattle and the Library of the Boston Athenæum are the other two. Library and information professionals, as well as book lovers in more than 40 countries chose the winners.
Central Library was designed in the beaux-arts neo-Italian Renaissance style. Construction began in 1907 with philanthropist Andrew Carnegie’s $1 million gift. The Library opened to the public in 1912.
The calendar is published by ISIM, Information Strategy and Information Management, which is based in Sweden. For details or to purchase the calendar for $12.95, call the St. Louis Public Library Foundation at 539-0359.
I must agree. The library is a great example of civic design.
– Steve
The International Style building on MLK in downtown Wellston used to be a JCPenney. My friend Toby is a big fan of this building too; see the second page of architectural photos at http://www.tobyweiss.com. (Regarding her comments, though, I don’t think the guy she ran into is really the building’s owner.) Generally, I really like what you’re doing here, by the way. I live near both Clifton Park and the Ivanhoe business district, and it’s a great place to be.
Oops…my previous comment was supposed to be attached to the MLK piece, but I scrolled too far down. Sorry. I do have a lotta love for the library, though…