Last week we went to the National Library of France. While it’s not a statue, I have to talk about this building because it was awesome. The building is built on a man-made hill that you climb up. This is topped with the four large buildings that you can see in the picture. Just those alone would have been an impressive library but they are just the research wings. Once you walk up the hill, you realize that the actual library is underneath you.
One of the many things that I love about the library’s design, is the incorporation of the natural. The library circles a large living forest (pictured above) and all of its windows look out onto this green-space. The books of the library where in darker rooms, separated from the windows by long hallways that circled the building. This way people in the library could choose if they wanted to be in spaces that where darker or lighter, quiet or louder.
One cool part of the library was seeing these huge globes. Made for Louie XIV, one showed the earth (as it was seen in 17th century France) and one showed the constellations. They where both beautiful and massive. These where one of several objects on display in the museum.