Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building
Beaux-Arts library of 1897 with a mosaic Great Hall and octagonal domed Main Reading Room.
Congress authorised a separate building for its library in 1886 after the collection outgrew rooms in the Capitol. The competition-winning design by John L. Smithmeyer and Paul J. Pelz was scaled back and taken over in 1888 by the army engineer Thomas Lincoln Casey, whose son Edward Pearce Casey directed the interior decoration. Built of New Hampshire granite around a copper-clad dome topped by a gilded Torch of Learning, it opened on 1 November 1897, on time and under its appropriation, as the largest library building in the world.
The decoration employed more than forty American painters and sculptors. The Great Hall rises through two storeys in white Italian marble with mosaic floors, paired columns and a stained-glass ceiling, while the octagonal Main Reading Room is ringed by bronze statues and reader desks radiating from a central enquiry station beneath a dome 49 metres high. Among the collection items on show are the Gutenberg Bible and Thomas Jefferson's reconstructed library. Free timed-entry passes are required, and exhibition galleries are open to all.
Highlights
- The Great Hall in marble and mosaic under a stained-glass ceiling
- Octagonal Main Reading Room beneath a 49-metre dome
- Gutenberg Bible on permanent display
- Thomas Jefferson's library, reassembled in the Southwest Pavilion
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