Suzzallo Library

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Coordinates: 47.6557° N 122.3084° W

Suzzallo Library, looking east across Red Square

Suzzallo Library is the central library of the University of Washington in Seattle, and perhaps the most recognizable building on campus. It is named for Henry Suzzallo, who stepped down as president of the University of Washington in 1926, the same year the first phase of the library's construction was completed.

An architectural model of Suzzallo Library, not all components were built.

The library's original architects, Charles H. Bebb and Carl F. Gould, called for three structures built in Collegiate Gothic style and arranged in a roughly equilateral triangle with a bell tower in the center. The first phase, which dominates the eastern side of Central Plaza, better known as Red Square, forms the west face of this triangle. The south face of the triangle was completed in 1936 in the second phase of construction. The original plans were abandoned with the third wing of the library, completed in 1963. By this time the University had largely moved away from its earlier architectural style adopting instead modernist concrete and glass forms. A final addition was completed in 1990 with the Kenneth S. Allen Library wing, named for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's father, an associate director of the University library system from 1960 to 1982. The bell tower called for in the original plans was never built. Suzzallo Library was closed to the public between the years 2000 and 2002 while the building underwent extensive retrofitting to strengthen the structure's integrity as a precaution against the effects of an earthquake, but the Allen Library portion remained open during this time.

Graduate Reading Room

The 240-foot long Graduate Reading Room features cathedral ceilings and tall stained glass windows and spans the entire third floor of the west face of the library. Its distinctive look is said to have been inspired by Henry Suzzallo's openly-stated belief that universities should be "cathedrals of learning."

Adorning the exterior of the early wings are terra cotta sculptures of influential thinkers and artists selected by the faculty. They include Moses, Louis Pasteur, Dante Alighieri, Shakespeare, Plato, Benjamin Franklin, Justinian I, Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo Galilei, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herodotus, Adam Smith, Homer, Johann Gutenberg, Ludwig van Beethoven, Charles Darwin and Hugo Grotius. Three figures representing "Mastery", "Inspiration", and "Thought" additionally appear above the main entrance.

The Suzzallo Library's grand staircase is one of the library's architectural flourishes.

[edit] External links

• Suzzallo and Allen Libraries