Design
The building was designed by the architect Solon S. Beman and modeled after Beman's Merchant Tailors Building, the domed temple facing the lagoon in the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, and the Erechtheum at the Athenian Acropolis. Greek Mythology teaches that Demeter, the goddess, bestowed agriculture and civilization upon the world during Erechtheus's reign. The library's rotunda murals have thematic titles: "Labor", "Literature", "Art" and "Science".
The following is a summary of the building's features: Tiffany style dome; Marble column and walls in the rotunda and foyer; 4 overhead rotunda murals painted by Oliver Dennett Grover, mural painter for the World Columbian Exposition; 1 in (2.5 cm) square Italian marble mosaic flooring; glass-floored mezzanine; 2,800 pounds (1,300 kg) bronze plate, solid copper core outer front doors; 2 150 pounds (68 kg) lbs. bronze and glass inner doors; 12 inches (30 cm) thick granite walls; and ionic columns.
The building's adult reading room is equipped with mahogany furniture specifically designed for the space. It also contains matching built-in shelving and custom-made bronze lamps. The circulation desk area has two-tiered bronze-trimmed book stacks. The mezzanine floor is composed of glass blocks.
Read more about this topic: Blackstone Library
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)
“Westerners inherit
A design for living
Deeper into matter—
Not without due patter
Of a great misgiving.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter. Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility, setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle, is ready to defend in the face of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)