Central Library

A full-block Beaux-Arts library of light gray Maine granite, modeled on an Italian Renaissance palazzo. A rusticated ground story carries a piano nobile of tall round-arched windows between pilasters; the entablature frieze is incised with the names of authors and printers - Longfellow, Emerson, Thackeray, Balzac, Cervantes, and Darwin among them - and set with carved medallion roundels. A balustraded parapet and a low green-tiled hipped roof crown the block. A monumental granite stair rises from Olive Street to bronze entrance grilles, and ornate bronze torchères, their basins carried on cast turtles, stand along the balustraded terrace.

The Central Library was designed by Cass Gilbert of New York, who won the 1907 design competition, and built between 1907 and 1912. Its construction was funded by a $1,000,000 grant Andrew Carnegie made to the city in 1901 for a central library and several branches. The bronze entrance grilles were cast by the Gorham Company; an Art Room designed by W. Oscar Mullgardt, with work by the sculptor Victor Berlendis, was added in 1930. Between 2010 and 2012 the building was renovated by Cannon Design, which restored the historic rooms and reworked the interior for contemporary use. It remains the central branch of the St. Louis Public Library and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.