NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

INTRODUCTION
• The New York Public Library ‘s Designed By Architect Carrere & ROSE MAIN READING ROOM
Hastings In 1897 And Completed In 1911. • One of New York City’s most iconic locations, the majestic Rose Main
• The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965 Reading Room measures 78 feet by 297 feet—roughly the length of two
• the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in city blocks—with 52-foot-tall ceilings displaying murals of vibrant skies
the United States (behind the library of the congress ), and 4th and billowing clouds.
largest in the world • This breath taking Beaux-Arts space weaves Old World architectural
elegance with modern technology
• The room is lined with thousands of reference works on open shelves
along the floor level and along the balcony, lit by massive windows and
grand chandeliers and furnished with sturdy wood tables, comfortable
chairs, and brass lamps.
INTERIOR
• its unique stone vault above an awesome white marble interior, sets the
tone for the architectural delights that lie in store for the visitor.
• Sumptuous light brackets, elaborately decorated ceilings,
grand chandeliers the great gallery extending along the north-south axis
of the building on the first floor, the window bays, the doorways, the
great stairways, all combine to lift the human spirit and dignify man's
DESIGN achievements.
• An historic building with beaux art, neo-classical architectural • The elaborately decorated Main Reading Room, almost two city blocks in
style. length, located at the top of the building for light and quiet, is a fitting
• It currently contains area of 646,680 square feet climax to all that the architects wished to achieve."
(60,079 m ) and 4 stories open to public
2 [

• The main reading room is, of course, the crowning glory of the
library, or should have been.
• It is divided into a north and south wing with a center divider for
the staff to distribute books that come up in dumbwaiters from
the miles of stacks below and the center divider fortunately does
not extend to the ceiling.
• If one ascends to the third floor one finally encounters some old-
fashioned grandeur in the large hall that is the vestibule for the ROSE MAIN READING ROOM AN INTERIOR VIEW
Main Reading Room's catalogue room. This "Landing Hall,"
shown above, is quite ornate, with stucco, according to Reed, FEATURES
painted to look like rich woods, and murals on printing themes
by Edward Lanning in large arched panels
• Directly across from the main entrance is Gottesman Hall, shown PITCH ROOF
at the left, a large exhibition space that has an attractive ceiling
but some rather large obstacles in the shape of groups of huge COUETYARD
marble columns CORINTHIAN
COLUMN
Two stone lions Arcade decorative Entrance portico
EXTERIOR (made of Tennessee intrados semi- decorated by
• The exterior wall made white marble SECTION marble) lie at either circular arch with Corinthian capital
• The marble walls are one foot thick and side of the stairway decorated lion key with acanthuses
the basement of the structure has to the entrance. stone leaves
additional brick walls four feet thick
• Rusticated masonry building façade
• Arch window and pitch roof PEDIMENT
• The exterior is 20,000 blocks of stone ARCH
• The font of library has a vast open
CORINTHIAN
space treated as a plaza.
COLUMN
• The design of the columns has been
borrowed from ancient temples ELEVATION DECORATIVE CEILING ENTRANCE LOBBY

NEO-CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE
 HOLKHAM HALL
FEATURES
INTRODUCTION
• Holkham Hall is an 18th-century country house located
adjacent to the village of Holkham, Norfolk, England.
• The house was constructed in the Palladian style
for Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester.
• fifth creation by the architect William Kent, aided
by the architect and aristocrat Lord Burlington.
• The severity of its design is closer to Palladio's ideals

GILDED COFFERED On the north side,

APSE AT ONE END rather more Venetian
windows than on the
south side. Also no
portico but a flat
pedimented projection

Plan of the piano Nobile at Holkham, showing the four symmetrical wings at each
corner of the principal block. South is at the top of the plan

MARBLE HALL

DESIGN PEDIMENT REST The rest of the house

• The Palladian style was admired by Whigs such as BLIND WINDOW has a balustrade in
Thomas Coke, who sought to identify themselves with VENETIAN WINDOWS front of the low roof
the Romans of antiquity STARK BRICKWORK and to the S, that is
• Holkham; based his design on Palladio’s unbuilt Villa the garden, a portico
Mocenigo, as it appears in I Quattro Libri of six Corinthian
dell'Architettura , but with modifications. columns carrying a
• The plans for Holkham were of a large central block of pediment
two floors only and two courtyards
• This great central block is flanked by four smaller, Holkham Hall. not even a blind window is allowed to break the void between the windows and roof-line,
rectangular blocks, or wings, and at each corners is while the lower windows are mere piercings in the stark brickwork. The only hint of ornamentation is from
linked to the main house not by long colonnades—as the two terminating Venetian windows.
would have been the norm in Palladian architecture—
but by short two-storey wings of only one bay INTERIOR
EXTERIOR •
•
Extensive architectural gilding work at Holkham Hall.
23½ carat gold leaf has been applied to the window
• The ground floor is rusticated & fine masonry.
surrounds, door pediments, columns and dado rails in the Marble hall in amazing The alabaster had
• Above them is a Venetian window in the centre to the N,
North State Sitting Room coffered and flowerily dramatic red seams
but otherwise there are only a few pediments to the
• The house is entered through the Marble Hall room is over pattern ceiling running through it which
windows.
50 feet (15 m) from floor to ceiling and is dominated by CHAPEL gave it a warmer
• The centre of each wing is raised by a half storey. The
the broad white marble flight of steps leading to the atmosphere than a pure
sides as well as the centre are crowned by pediments.
surrounding gallery, or an architraves austere white marble
• There are E and W courts between the wings.
• this leads to the piano nobile, or the first floor, and state would have around the
• The rest of the house has a balustrade in front of the low
rooms. marble hall are statues
roof and to the S, that is the garden, a portico of six
• The most impressive of these rooms is the Saloon, which in niches; these are
Corinthian columns carrying a pediment.
has walls lined with red velvet. predominantly plaster
• Facing the garden facade a fountain with the group of
• The long library being the first major interior completed in copies of classical
Perseus and Andromeda by Charles R. Smith. This dates
1741. Among the last to be completed and entirely under deities
from c.1850.
lady Leicester's supervision is the chapel with its alabaster Interior view of
• The principal, or South façade, is 344 feet (104.9 m) in SALOON ROOM
reredos. Venetian windows
length (from each of the flanking wings to the other),

NEO-CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE