Handbook of the new Library of Congress

by Unknown

The Library is in three stories: the basement story of fourteen feet; the first story, or main library floor, of twenty-one feet; and the second story of twenty-nine feet-making a height of sixty-four feet for the three stories at the lowest point. Adding to this the base at ground level, and the simply designed balustrade which surmounts the whole, the total height is seventy-two feet above the ground. Beneath the entire structure is a cellar, below the level of the ground outside, but within opening upon the interior courts. The granite of which the walls are constructed is rough, or “rock-faced,” in the basement story; much more finely dressed in the story above; and in the second story brought down to a perfectly smooth surface. The windows in the basement are square-headed, as also on the library floor, except along the west front, where they are arched, with ornamental keystones. Throughout the second story they are again square-headed, but with casings in relief, surmounted by pediments alternately rounded and triangular, and, along the west front, railed in at the bottom by false balustrades.

To prevent the monotony incident to a long, unrelieved facade, the walls are projected at each of the four corners and in the centre of the east and west sides, into pavilions, which, in addition to being slightly higher than the rest of the rectangle—thus allowing space for a low attic-story—are treated with greater richness and elaboration of ornamental detail. The corners are set with vermiculated granite blocks—blocks whose surface is worked into “vermiculations” or “wormings.” The keystones of the window-arches in the first story are sculptured with a series of heads illustrating the chief ethnological types of mankind. Along the second-story front runs a portico supported upon a row of twin columns, each a single piece of granite, with finely carved Corinthian capitals. The pedestals which support the columns are connected by granite balustrades, so that the portico forms a single long balcony, with an entrance through the windows which look out upon it.

THE ENTRANCE PAVILION.

NEPTUNE, FROM THE FOUNTAIN.

Of all these pavilions the West, or Main Entrance, Pavilion, is by far the largest as well as by far the most ornate. It is one hundred and forty feet long, or almost a third the total length of the building, and about seven feet higher than either of the other five pavilions. At either end it is itself projected, or pavilioned. The Main Entrance is through a porch of three arches, on the main library floor. The approaches are extensive and imposing. A flight of steps, constructed of granite from Troy, New Hampshire, ascends from either side to a central landing, laid with flags of red Missouri granite. Thence the stairway leads in a single flight to the Entrance Porch, with space underneath for a porte cochère in front of the doors admitting to the basement. The central landing just spoken of is protected by a high retaining wall which forms the background for a splendid fountain by Mr. Roland Hinton Perry, ornamented with a profusion of allegorical figures in bronze—the chief figure representing Neptune enthroned in front of a grotto of the sea.

The posts of the granite railing of the steps support elaborate bronze candelabra, bearing clusters of electric lamps for illumination at night. The spandrels of the Entrance Porch—the approximately triangular spaces flanking the three arches—are ornamented with female figures sculptured in high relief in granite, representing Literature, Science, and Art. They were modelled by Mr. Bela L. Pratt. Above the main windows of the library floor is a series of smaller, circular windows, which serve as a background for a series of granite busts (the pedestals of which rest in the pediments below) of men eminent in literature. There are nine in all, seven along the front, and one at each end of the pavilion. They are flanked by boldly sculptured figures of children, reclining upon the sloping pediments, or, alternately, by massive garlands of fruits. The keystones of the circular windows each support the standing figure of a winged cherub, or genius, all sculptured from a single design, and introduced as the accentuating feature of a frieze of foliated ornament extending along the three sides of the pavilion. Like the garlands and figures on the pediments, they were modelled by Mr. William Boyd. At either end of the attic story Mr. Boyd’s hand appears again in the sculptural embellishment of the little porch—as one may perhaps call it—which looks out upon the balcony formed by the granite railing. The rounded pediment contains a group in granite consisting of the American eagle flanked by two seated children. Each pediment is supported on the shoulders of two conventional Atlases—“Atlantides” is the technical name—figures of gigantic strength, so called because in the Greek and Roman mythology Atlas was fabled as a giant supporting the vault of heaven by his unaided strength.

RUSSIAN SLAV. BLONDE EUROPEAN. BRUNETTE EUROPEAN.

A more particular description is required of the fountain, the ethnological heads, the series of busts in the portico of the Entrance Pavilion, and the spandrel figures ornamenting the Entrance Porch.