D.C. '11: The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is right next to both the Supreme Court and the Capitol Building, so it's a good place to visit before or after either of those tours (we went in the afternoon after visiting the Supreme Court).  It's a fantastic and often overlooked sight to see in Washington D.C.
If you've never heard of it, it's literally what its name says: it's Congress's library.  When the Capitol Building was first built, it had a small library of mostly legal reference books.  When it was burned down during the war of 1812 by the British (technically in 1814), Thomas Jefferson offered up his personal library from his Monticello of over 6,000 books, in many different languages and spanning topics from law to science to literature to religion to just about anything.  At first, there was contention about Congress accepting this collection, to which Jefferson argued, "there is in fact, no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer."

Although another fire in 1851 destroyed a good deal of this collection yet again, eventually the holdings outgrew the space in the Capitol Building, and in 1897 the new building was finished in a beautiful Italian Renaissance style.  Now, it's this fabulous, gigantic building with every inch covered in intricate sculpture, painting, and every other type of art you can think of, both inside and out, and filled with symbolism both of American history and of American ideals.  It's absolutely gorgeous.

It's not only the Congress's library, but is opened up to be the people's library as well.  There is a beautiful reading room for people doing long-term research, and there are many exhibits highlighting collections pertaining to different aspects of America's history.  One such exhibit is Thomas Jefferson's original library, protected behind glass but beautifully laid out in a spiral bookcase, with the original volumes salvaged from the 1851 fire as well as replacements from the exact publishing years of the volumes that burned that we have on record.  One could spend days exploring this library.

I'll close out this entry with photos and captions, now that I've explained what the building is all about.

View of the Library of Congress, including the dome of the Rotunda in its Reading Room) from the visitor's entrance to the Capitol Building.

Fountains at the base of the building - ground floor entrance is behind these statues in a little tunnel.

First floor entrance (closed to visitors at this time, the ground floor entrance is underneath these stairs).

Archway inside the First Floor entrance.

A Buddhist monk looking over the atrium.

View of the 2nd floor walkway around the atrium.

There is sculpture all around the atrium packed with symbolism - there are several pairs of these babies representing different geographical and cultural regions of the world - these two are the African on the right, with his hand over Africa, and the Native American on the left, whose hand shades his eyes, since he has no nation left (surprisingly insightful to me for late 19th century architecture).

Minerva holding a scroll of all the different academic disciplines of humanity.

I particularly liked this inscription.

 Thomas Jefferson's original library (photo stolen from the Internet).

This is a photograph I pilfered from the internet of the Reading Room - every statue and carving here has its own symbolism as well.  No photographs were allowed, so I had to search Google to find this.

I'd love to spend days and days in this building.  Definitely try to see it if you are ever in D.C.