Dan has discovered heaven on earth and it is called the H.H. Richardson Reading Room in the Thomas Crane library in good old Quincy, Mass. Look at the bottom photograph.
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My.. Now that is a reading room.
I want that to be a room in my house.
The calming effect that just the picture has is amazing. I can only imagine what it is like to see it in person.
One of the things I truly miss about “modern” libraries are the magnificent reading rooms.
When I was a student at University of Michigan, I used to regularly go to the Grad Library just so I could sit in that huge wonderful reading room, stare at the murals (“the arts of war” and “the arts of peace,” IIRC. Perhaps by now they’ve taken down the “war” one as not being p.c….) and bask in the lovely soft light that you find in reading rooms.
If I were a rich woman, I’d have a library/reading room in my house. Paneled. Soft light. Leather armchairs….
Spectacular. I’ll have to see whether the main library in Cleveland has a comparable reading room.
Wandering the stacks at any big library is a bittersweet experience for me. On the one hand, hardcover books are among mankind’s highest achievements, and being surrounded by them is a slice of heaven.
On the other, I can’t help saying to myself, “Look at all these books–no matter how long I live, I’m going to die not knowing what most of them had to say to me.”
Dearest: my friend Michael worked at the Crane for many years. It is also the local library for your Uncle Terry. If you think this is good, you must visit another library in Quincy built by JQ Adams. love, dad
My former boss owns a house in Little Rock’s historical Heights district. He has one of those libraries, walnut-paneled walls, bookshelves to the ceiling, tufted leather chairs, even a fireplace. I just about burst into tears when I first saw it, it was so perfect. He even has one of those sliding ladder things like Marion slides on in The Music Man.
We had our office Christmas parties there each year, and I never left the library. I always wanted to ask for a hot toddy and an afghan so I could cuddle up on one of the couches and read and read and read. . .
Ricki: exactly. The two halves of the Boston Public Library, for instance are like night and day that way as well as others, inside and out. The old building from the 1880’s is this ornate architecural jewel, seamlessly blending Romanesque and Gothic Revival and (I’m guessing) made to complement Trinity Church on the other side of Copley Square and the other church across Boylston Street that echoes St. Mark’s in Venice. The reading rooms feel like they could be the personal library of a Byzantine Emperor or something. The new building from the 1970’s, however, is this completely plain modern thing that practically looks like doors and windows were drilled into a single giant cinder block: plain, functional and boring, at best. The only kind thing I can say about that building is that it’s far from the worst eyesore of that period in the area: IMHO, that “honor” far and away goes to Boston City Hall.
I practically lived at the Library of Congress for the first of my senior year as an undergrad, and it’s hard to put the magnificent opulence of the main reading room there into words. However, the Crane Library does have the benefit of being MUCH closer. :-)
(That should read: first SEMESTER of my senior year. “Damn, seven years’ of college down the drain!”)
I vaguely recall the Special Collections room at the NYPL as being a pleasant room in a crowded sort of way. Not as impressive as the linked one, but comforting in a “surrounded by books” way. The main reading room there was on the “impressive” side, though I think they’ve done work on it since I was last there years ago.
JP Morgan’s library or study, I forget which (in the aptly named JP Morgan Library)was huge, but the walls were covered in a red velvet wallpaper I found a bit disturbing.
Sheila,
Richardson designed a number of libraries in MA, including the one I went to as a litte kid, as well as the one in my post.
I think my favorite thing about them (and I don’t know if you can see it in the pictures) is the balconies with shelves running around the upper level.
The Morgan library is indeed spectacular … I should hang out at the NYPL more often. It’s basically a couple blocks away from me.
But NOTHING can compare to the library at Trinity College in Dublin. NOTHING. Every time I walk in there, I feel like I want to cry.