Some cool photo library images:
Boston - Back Bay: Boston Public Library McKim Building - Courtyard
Image by wallyg
The interior courtyard of the Boston Public Library McKim Building is surrounded by an arcaded gallery in the manner of a Renaissance cloister. The promenade is almost an exact facsimile of the arcade of the Cancelleria Palace in Rome. The bronze cast fountain in the center, Bacchante and Infant Faun, modeled in Paris in 1893-94 by Fredereick William MacMonnies, was initially offered as a gift by Charles Follen McKim in 1896 but the Woman's Christian Temperance Union caused such a public outcry citing its "drunken indecency" that the gift had to be refused by the library. McKim, in turn, gave the statue to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A copy has since taken its place in its intended original location in the courtyard of the Boston Public Library.
The Boston Public Library McKim Building, located on Boylston Street between Dartmouth and Exeter Streets, was built in 1895 by Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead & White. Consisting of a three-story, monumental free-standing block in the style of an Italian Renaissance palace surrounding an open courtyard, McKim's design was one of the earliest successful examples of Renaissance Beaux-Arts Classicism in America, and set the precedent for grand scale urban libraries. In 1972, the Philip Johnson-designed late modernist wing was added to the Central Library location. The Boston Public Library system, established in 1848, was the country's first publicly supported municipal library, its first large library open to the public and its first to allow citizens to borrow books. There are currently twenty-six branches in the system.
In 2007, Boston Public Library was ranked #90 on the AIA 150 America's Favorite Architecture list.
Boston Public Library National Register #73000317 (1973)
Boston - Back Bay: Boston Public Library McKim Building - Courtyard
Image by wallyg
The interior courtyard of the Boston Public Library McKim Building is surrounded by an arcaded gallery in the manner of a Renaissance cloister. The promenade is almost an exact facsimile of the arcade of the Cancelleria Palace in Rome. The bronze cast fountain in the center, Bacchante and Infant Faun, modeled in Paris in 1893-94 by Fredereick William MacMonnies, was initially offered as a gift by Charles Follen McKim in 1896 but the Woman's Christian Temperance Union caused such a public outcry citing its "drunken indecency" that the gift had to be refused by the library. McKim, in turn, gave the statue to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A copy has since taken its place in its intended original location in the courtyard of the Boston Public Library.
The Boston Public Library McKim Building, located on Boylston Street between Dartmouth and Exeter Streets, was built in 1895 by Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead & White. Consisting of a three-story, monumental free-standing block in the style of an Italian Renaissance palace surrounding an open courtyard, McKim's design was one of the earliest successful examples of Renaissance Beaux-Arts Classicism in America, and set the precedent for grand scale urban libraries. In 1972, the Philip Johnson-designed late modernist wing was added to the Central Library location. The Boston Public Library system, established in 1848, was the country's first publicly supported municipal library, its first large library open to the public and its first to allow citizens to borrow books. There are currently twenty-six branches in the system.
In 2007, Boston Public Library was ranked #90 on the AIA 150 America's Favorite Architecture list.
Boston Public Library National Register #73000317 (1973)
George Town - Library
Image by roger4336
The old Cayman Islands public library is in the foreground. It was built in 1939. A new, three-story building is in the background. I took this photo from Heroes Square in downtown Georgetown, Grand Cayman.
