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Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library

1912 establishments in New York CityColumbia University LibrariesLibraries in ManhattanLibrary buildings completed in 1912University and college academic libraries in the United States
Avery Library, Columbia University in the City of New York
Avery Library, Columbia University in the City of New York

The Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library is a library located in Avery Hall on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University in the New York City. It is the largest architecture library in the world. Serving Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and the Department of Art History and Archaeology, Avery Library collects books and periodicals in architecture, historic preservation, art history, painting, sculpting, graphic arts, decorative arts, city planning, real estate, and archaeology, as well as archival materials primarily documenting 19th- and 20th-century American architects and architecture. The architectural, fine arts, Ware, and archival collections are non-circulating. The Avery-LC Collection, primarily newer print books, does circulate.

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Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library
Amsterdam Avenue, New York Manhattan

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N 40.808194444444 ° E -73.960972222222 °
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Avery Hall

Amsterdam Avenue 1172
10027 New York, Manhattan
New York, United States
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Avery Library, Columbia University in the City of New York
Avery Library, Columbia University in the City of New York
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Low Memorial Library
Low Memorial Library

The Low Memorial Library (nicknamed Low) is a building at the center of Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus in Manhattan, New York City, United States. The building, located near 116th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue, was designed by Charles Follen McKim of the firm McKim, Mead & White. The building was constructed between 1895 and 1897 as the university's central library, although it has contained the university's central administrative offices since 1934. Columbia University president Seth Low funded the building with $1 million (equivalent to $33 million in 2021) and named the edifice in memory of his father, Abiel Abbot Low. Low's facade and interior are New York City designated landmarks, and the building is also designated as a National Historic Landmark. Low is arranged in the shape of a Greek cross. Three sets of stairs on the library's south side lead to a colonnade with a frieze describing its founding. The steps contain Daniel Chester French's sculpture Alma Mater, a university symbol. The library is four stories tall, excluding a ground-level basement. The building's raised first floor has an entrance vestibule, as well as an ambulatory around an octagonal rotunda, which leads to offices on the outer walls. The rotunda contains a sky-blue plaster dome and four Vermont granite columns on each of its four sides. The library's stacks could store one-and-a-half million volumes; the east wing hosted the Avery Architectural Library and the north wing hosted Columbia's law library. The library was built as part of Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus, which was developed in the 1890s according to a master plan by McKim. When Low Library was completed, it was poorly suited for library use, becoming overcrowded from the early 20th century. Low's central location, however, made it a focal point of the university's campus. Following the completion of the much larger Butler Library in 1934, the Low Memorial Library was converted to administrative offices.