We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine.
Eduardo Hughes Galeano
The World’s Most Beautiful Libraries
“Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.” -Ray Bradbury
For centuries, books have housed the collective knowledge of the world and formed the foundations of educational institutions. Given that these objects contain such value, it only makes sense that throughout history people have constructed beautiful buildings to house them.
We put together a list of some of the most beautiful libraries as captured by Instagrammers around the world. For more photos from these architectural wonders, check out their linked location pages below.
- Stuttgart City Library, Stuttgart, Germany
- Trinity College Library, Dublin, Ireland
- Library of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt
- Real Gabinete Português de Leitura, Rio de Janiero, Brazil
- The Royal Danish Library, Copenhagen, Denmark
- George Peabody Library, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
- Kanazawa Umimirai Library, Kanazawa City, Japan
- New York Public Library, New York City, NY
The first photo reminds me of M.C. Escher
Mariana Renata Dantec in Mariana V1.3
Roman Opałka was a French-born Polish painter who painted numbers. In 1965 he began painting a process of counting – from one to infinity. Starting in the top left-hand corner of the canvas and finishing in the bottom right-hand corner, the tiny numbers were painted in horizontal rows. As of July 2004, he had reached 5.5 million.
