Powell Library

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Powell Library
General information
Architectural style Romanesque revival
Town or city Los Angeles, California
Country United States of America
Construction started 1926
Completed 1929
Client University of California, Los Angeles
Design and construction
Architect George W. Kelham
Powell at night

Powell Library is the main college undergraduate library on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). It was constructed from 1926 to 1929 and was one of the original four buildings that comprised the UCLA campus in the early period of the university's life. Its Romanesque Revival architecture design, its historic value and its popularity with students make it one of the defining images of UCLA.

Like the building facing it across the quad, Royce Hall, the building's exterior is modeled after Milan's Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio.[1]

It is named for Lawrence Clark Powell, the University Librarian at UCLA from 1944 to 1961 and Dean of the Graduate School of Library Service from 1960 to 1966. It is part of the extensive UCLA Library system. The Graduate School of Library and Information Science, as GSLS was later known, was housed for many years in the western end of the top floor. During this period the building also contained a separate unit of the campus library system devoted to education and psychology, which was later closed and its collection distributed among the other campus libraries.

The entrance of the library is adorned with several mosaics, one of which depicts two men holding a book bearing the phrase, from Cicero's Pro Archia Poeta, "Haec studia adulescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant". This loosely translates as "Studying in youth sustains delight into old age", an appropriate dictum for the vast collection for undergraduate students.[2]

There are also Renaissance Printers' Marks on the ceiling.[3]

The architecture of Powell Library was the inspiration for the design of Maine East High School in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, Illinois.

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.today.ucla.edu/1998/archive980316.html
  2. ↑ http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/powell/powlibbld.pdf
  3. ↑ http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/11602.cfm

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