The Great Hall of the Library of Congress

The Library of Con­gress is one of the most impres­sive build­ings I’ve ever vis­ited. When you stand in the Thomas Jef­fer­son Building’s Grand Hall, you almost don’t know which way to look. There are mag­nif­i­cent views in every direc­tion. That also makes it an inter­est­ing room to photograph.

Most of the shots that I saw of this build­ing didn’t include the stained glass ceil­ing. The few that did were fish­eye shots that, in my opin­ion, just destroyed the beauty of the view. I under­stand the desire to try and get it all in your shot, but you also lose some­thing when you dis­tort the lines by using a fish­eye. That’s a lens that works well in are­nas and sta­di­ums, but not so much here.

Look­ing up inside the Library of Con­gress can make you feel a bit dizzy. Not just here in the Great Hall, but also in the Grand Read­ing Room. What I wouldn’t have given to be able to take pho­tos in there, but that room was off lim­its to my cam­era. I’m happy with the oppor­tu­ni­ties I received, though This is one of those places where the old maxim of look­ing behind you after you take a photo is insuf­fi­cient. You need to look up and down, too. I’m still kick­ing myself for the shots that I didn’t think to take while I was there in the Grand Hall. Per­haps next time.

I was read­ing the MyLOC​.gov site. Here’s some­thing it said about the Library of Con­gress that caught my attention.

When its doors opened to the pub­lic in 1897, the Library of Con­gress rep­re­sented an unpar­al­leled national achieve­ment, the “largest, costli­est, and safest” library in the world.

Its elab­o­rately dec­o­rated inte­rior, embell­ished by works of art from nearly fifty Amer­i­can painters and sculp­tors, linked the United States to clas­si­cal tra­di­tions of learn­ing and simul­ta­ne­ously flexed Amer­i­can cul­tural and tech­no­log­i­cal muscle.

I under­stand that it was the largest and costli­est, but safest? I didn’t know that libraries were unsafe. Live and learn. Isn’t that why we have a Library of Con­gress, after all?

If you go visit Wash­ing­ton, D.C., take some time to visit the Library of Con­gress. Just spend a moment enjoy­ing the splen­dor of the Great Hall. Soak in the his­tory. Then you can go home and won­der why all so much of our mod­ern art and archi­tec­ture is so damn unimaginative.