Beautiful libraries: I have loved libraries since I was a child. I would enjoy the weekly Saturday morning trip to the library with my sister. I would spend hours walking up and down the aisles, especially the biography section, to see what book caught my attention. That love of libraries has never ended. Whenever I travel to a city, I try to find time to go to their library. Some of the most beautiful architectural buildings in the world are private or public libraries.
Here are what I can consider the 10 most beautiful and interesting libraries in the world:
- Klementinum Library in Prague. A stunning baroque library housed in a monastery built in 1622.
- Trinity College Library in Dublin. A 200-foot-long room that contains thousands of books including the Book of Kells.
- Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt. The ancient great library was destroyed by fire 1,600 years ago. The current architecture version opened in 2002.
- Biblioteca Joanina at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. Built in 1717 with exotic carved wood and intricate mural arches.
- Bodleian Library at the Oxford University in England. Their reading room was used for the Hogwarts library in the Harry Potter movies.
- Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The remains of Thomas Jefferson’s private book collection are here along with a Gutenberg Bible.
- National Library of Bhutan. It’s technically a Buddhist temple and a library of rare books and printed materials.
- The JP Morgan Library in New York City. They own one of the world’s greatest collections of illuminated manuscripts and medieval artworks.
- Seattle Public Library in Seattle. It’s a futuristic glass building, where you walk up four stories on an incline spiral floor.
- The Royal Library in Copenhagen, Denmark. It’s known as the Black Diamond made of glass and black granite with amazing harbor views.
