Following on from the first post in the series, this edition brings more inspiring bibliothèques from Europe. London to Paris to Amsterdam and more, here is a selection of some of the best libraries in Europe:
Cuypers Library
Perhaps The Netherland’s best known museum, the Rijksmuseum is a haven for Dutch renaissance art, and includes an extensive research library within the museum’s complex. In operation since 1885, the stunning, multi-tier library has grown to over 400,000 volumes with an additional 10,000 books, auction catalogues, and periodicals added to the collection every year. The Cuypers Library, the largest and oldest art historical library in the Netherlands, is open to all with free membership and Monday-to-Saturday opening hours. The four-floor library is housed in a cathedral-like building featuring delicate ceiling paintings and elegant Victorian columns.
The National Art Library
Forming part of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the National Art Library was founded in 1837 as the library for the Government School of Design. In 1857 it moved to its home at the V&A and has become the UK’s biggest art library. Set over two tiers, the library is made up of multiple rooms with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves to one side and views of the the John Madejski Garden to the other. The library includes the largest collection of Charles Dickens’s manuscripts and working notes in the world, as well as five of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, and three collections of Beatrix Potter’s hand drawn works. The reading rooms feature central aisles flanked by original Victorian reading desks and lamps, and a bright Neo-grecian-inspired overhead skylight.
Sainte-Geneviève Library
Located opposite the venerable Panthéon, the Sainte-Geneviève Library in Paris is the oldest library in this post, with origins dating back to the 6th century as the Abbey of St Genevieve’s library. Now forming part of the University of Paris, the public library comprises of over two million documents including 12th century illuminated manuscripts. In the 1850s the collection moved into the building that stands today, built by Henri Labrouste and featuring barrel-vaulted ceilings, cast iron arches and columns, and large arched windows running down all sides of the building. The library is said to have influenced innumerable libraries in the United States including Boston Public Library and Low Memorial Library. The library may also be recognisable for its notation in works by Balzac, Simone de Beauvoir, and in James Joyce’s Ulysses.
Book Shops
Situated in the most populated cities in Europe, these bookshops not only enjoy heavy traffic, they also appear regularly on instagram feeds thanks to their beauty. Even if you’ve never stepped foot in either city, you’ve probably seen both of these bookshops online as some of the literati’s most loved stores. Daunt Books in London and Shakespeare and Company in Paris are both English-language bookshops, but with very different approaches to interiors.
Daunt Books in Marylebone has smart Edwardian design thanks to the store’s life as a bookstore in the 1910s. Opened in the 1990s, the interiors are tidy, symmetrical and span multiple levels with a bright central skylight and elegant wood balusters. Shakespeare and Company, on the other hand, is messy, busy and dark, like a labyrinth of paperbacks where only truly voracious bookworms bare tread. Opened in the 1950s by an American bookseller, the store sells both new and second-hand books, and was modelled on a store of the same name formerly operating in Paris by the American publisher Sylvia Beach .
See more beautiful libraries from around the world in upcoming posts exploring North and South America and the East. Find more inspiring reading rooms in previous posts such as the last edition of our Best Libraries series or a post on Library Inspiration, alternatively browse the ‘library‘ tag for more