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Michael Eastman
At the heart of the Central Library is the Great Hall. St. Louis Antique Lighting Company disassembled the hall’s eight massive chandeliers, polished each part, and then rewired them to be energy-efficient.
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Michael Eastman
The Central Library has two entrances that flank the Great Hall. Here, at the Locust Street entrance, is the library’s more modern side, previously home to a seven-story stack tower. “One thing that patrons and downtown residents told us is that Central Library is beautiful,” says McGuire, “but it’s opaque.” So contractors replaced the frosted-glass windows with clear glass, looking over Locust Street. Glass walls for the public meeting rooms and stacks also help create an open environment.
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Michael Eastman
The new bookcases’ sides match other architectural details throughout the library.
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Michael Eastman
The lower level once housed furnaces and coal bins. This staircase now leads to a 250-seat auditorium.
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Michael Eastman
The Olive Street foyer looks as it did when renowned architect Cass Gilbert designed the Central Library in 1908. The frescoed ceiling includes portraits of King Louis IX of France, canonized as St. Louis; Hernado de Soto, who discovered the Mississippi River; Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the printing press; and Aldus Pius Manutius, an early printer who made books cheaper and more portable.
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Michael Eastman
The ornate doors of the Olive Street entrance.
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Michael Eastman
One of the Great Hall’s two matching doorways.
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Michael Eastman
Gilbert himself designed this architectural detail, which is also featured on the gates outside the library and echoed in the paneling of the library’s new bookshelves.
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Michael Eastman
Stained-glass windows next to the grand staircase.
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Michael Eastman
Peering down from the top of the grand staircase
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Michael Eastman
The grand staircase has two stained-glass windows. This one pays homage to artes and littera (Latin for arts and literature), the other to poesis and musica (poetry and music). “Public libraries are the way a city expresses confidence in its future,” says McGuire. “That St. Louis has invested in the future of one of the most beautiful public libraries in America says a lot about what we think about ourselves.”
During preparations for the St. Louis Central Library’s renovation, the construction team discovered a vault hidden behind paneling. Amid the old accounting papers, executive director Waller McGuire found steel magnate Andrew Carnegie’s original 1901 letter confirming his $1 million donation to St. Louis to start a library system. “That made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck,” McGuire says.
For McGuire, the Central Library’s renovation and restoration was about making a library for the 21st century while honoring the building’s past. The $70 million makeover included converting much of the former office space into reading rooms, adding a computer commons and café on the first floor, and creating a 250-seat auditorium in the former furnace rooms. It’s the loving restoration of the Great Hall and Olive Street foyer, though, that will make visitors’ eyes go wide when the Central Library reopens to the public December 9.
“It was built as a great palace,” says McGuire, “but it’s unique in that it’s a palace that belongs to everyone.” —Rosalind Early
Photography by Michael Eastman
Photography by Michael Eastman
