The McKim Building of the Boston Public Library

Facing Dartmouth Street, the McKim Building displays classical symmetry: 13 second-floor arches line up perfectly with 10 ground floor windows, while five arches flank three main entryway arches. The building’s terracotta roof is set off by a decorative green copper cornice. Above each of the three arched doorways is a seal made by American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. They represent the state of Massachusetts, the Boston Public Library, and the City of Boston. The words “Free to All” are presented over a fret design (or Greek key) border that runs the length of the building. The two bronze robed statues by artist Bela Pratt at the front of the building represent science and art. Aram Boghosian/Boston Public Library

In 1854, Boston’s first library was opened in a two-room schoolhouse. By the following year, the growing city was able to offer the public a far grander structure and opened the McKim Building as its central branch, 16 years before New York City’s public library began welcoming patrons. The library is “a significant point of pride for the City of Boston,” according to a statement by its board of trustees.

That pride is not only due to the institution’s long history but to its architectural excellence. New York architectural firm McKim, Mead, and White was chosen by the library’s board to design the structure in 1887. The city named the building for the firm’s founding partner Charles Follen McKim.

The style and proportions of the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, a library constructed in 1850 in Paris, served as the main inspiration for the McKim Building. Like many grand examples of American 19th-century and early 20th-century architecture, the building’s design focuses on the beaux arts style, a blending of classical Roman and Greek styles with elements of Italian Renaissance architecture. The building’s exterior details and motifs also convey aspects of Boston’s harbor and the city’s proximity to the Atlantic Ocean with decorations that include copper dolphins and seashells.

A “palace for the people” is how Boston-based physician-poet Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. referred to the completed building. Indeed, striking exterior and interior sculptures, carvings, moldings, bas reliefs, arches, and columns lend an air of royal opulence to this 16,000-square-foot edifice.

The Boston Public Library of today is an architectural joining of the 19th-century McKim Building and an expansion on Copley Square, completed in 1972.

From every angle, the McKim Building lobby is an aesthetic wonder. The intricate mosaic-tile ceiling features Roman motifs of acanthus leaves and urns; the looming vault-like arches, designed by builder Rafael Guastavino, convey a sense of grandeur. In the main stairway arch are frames within frames, bordered by classical designs of rosettes, pearls, beads, and reels. The floor is of inlaid marble, while the staircase is of limestone embedded with fossils. Copper dolphins and seashells on the façade recall Boston's harbor and the Atlantic Ocean.  Aram Boghosian/Boston Public Library

Patrons of the Boston Public Library originally waited in the Abbey Room as library workers retrieved reserved books, research papers, and manuscripts. The elevated ceiling is imaginatively apportioned. The room was named for muralist, illustrator, and painter Edwin Austin Abbey, who painted the wall panels. A checkerboard marble floor, carved oak walls and doors, and beamed ceiling painted with gilded rosettes and wreaths complete this room’s fascinating design scheme. Aram Boghosian/Boston Public Library

Yellow Siena marble from northern Italy defines the sumptuous Staircase Hall. Signifying strength and commemorating the state’s Union soldiers who perished in the Civil War are two marble lion sculptures. The statues are made from the same yellow Siena marble, but are unpolished to provide contrast. This view provides a long look at the building’s entryway as well as one of two gallery floors above that are distinguished by painted panels and marble arches supported by capital-topped Corinthian columns. Aram Boghosian/Boston Public Library

French 19th-century muralist Pierre Puvis de Chavannes painted eight panels in the Staircase Hall. The Greek-inspired imagery represents the disciplines that were favored for academic study at the time: history, philosophy, astronomy, chemistry, physics, pastoral poetry, dramatic poetry, and epic poetry. The panels were created using marouflage, a technique that involved attaching the painted canvases to the wall plaster using a thick white paste of lead and linseed oil. Aram Boghosian/Boston Public Library

Artist John Singer Sargent painted the elaborate murals adorning the vaulted ceiling on the third floor. The theme of the murals, “Triumph of Religion,” depicts scenes of religious history and faith, from early Egyptian to Christianity. Boston Public Library shares in its booklet Art & Architecture, “The artist incorporated gilded molding and more than 600 pieces of raised relief in materials such as plaster, metal, wood, and glass to illuminate his subjects in the skylit hall.” Aram Boghosian/Boston Public Library

Bates Hall has a 50-foot-high barrel-vaulted ceiling. Rosettes, a fret design (or Greek key), dentil moldings, and leaf reliefs on the column-supported arches aesthetically balance the molded panel ceiling. The hall’s oak bookcases and tables have been in use since the building opened. Natural light floods this space through massive arched windows that are mullioned (separated into smaller panels). Aram Boghosian/Boston Public Library

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