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Boston Public Library, Boston MA |
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The Boston Public Library is the oldest free city library, dating from 1852, and among the largest municipal library systems in the world. It is the third-largest library (by number of books) in the USA, following only the Library of Congress and the Harvard University libraries. The Central Library of the "BPL" has two main buildings, the more familiar and immediately impressive McKim Building, facing Copley Square, designed by Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead and White. McKim's design was influenced in his design by the Palazzo della Cancellaria in Rome, the Templo Malatestiano in Rimini, and the Bibliothèque Ste-Geneviève in Paris. Enter the library from Copley Square to admire its architecture, particularly Bates Hall, the main reading room, upstairs. The grand hall with its many windows and coffered ceiling is a triumhal monument to learning and knowledge. The Johnson Building, adjoining the McKim building to the west, was designed by Philip Johnson and opened in 1972. Constructed of the same pink granite, it echoes the major elements and proportions of the McKim building in a much more restrained, severe modernist/ post-modernist style. If you like libraries, you must also have a look at the historic Boston Athenaeum, one of America's greatest 19th-century private libraries, just off Boston Common on Beacon Hill. More... Boston
Public Library
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Above, the Boston
Public Library's McKim building from Copley
Square.
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