This striking book shows the world's most beautiful libraries through
Candida Höfer's mesmerizing photographs.
No one photographs spaces quite like Candida Höfer and no one has
captured better the majesty, stillness, and eloquence of libraries.
Traveling around the world, Höfer shows the exquisite beauty to be found
in order, repetition, and form--rows of books, lines of desks, soaring
shelves, and even stacks of paper create patterns that are both hypnotic
and soothing. Photographed with a large-format camera and a small
aperture, these razor-sharp images of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New
York, the Escorial in Spain, Villa Medici in Rome, the Hamburg
University library, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France in Paris, and
the Museo Archeologico in Madrid, to name a few, communicate more than
just the superb architecture. Glowing with subtle color and natural
light, Höfer's photographs, while devoid of people, shimmer with life
and remind us again and again that libraries are more than just
repositories for books. Umberto Eco's essay about his own attachment to
libraries is the perfect introduction to an otherwise wordless, but
sublimely reverent journey.
