The Low Memorial Library (nicknamed Low) is a building at the center of Columbia University's campus in Upper Manhattan, New York City, U.S. 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 $ million in ) 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.
Site Low Memorial Library is at the center of Columbia University's campus in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City, U.S. The building's official address is 535 West 116th Street, though the section of 116th Street between Broadway to the west and Amsterdam Avenue to the east is part of the private College Walk. Low is raised above the northern portion of the campus, which itself is a terrace above the South Court to the south.; ; The library building occupies the highest point of the original campus.;
The building is surrounded by Miller Theatre and Lewisohn Hall to the southwest; Earl Hall to the west; Mathematics and Havemeyer Halls to the west; Uris Hall to the north; Schermerhorn, Avery, and Fayerweather Halls to the northeast; St. Paul's Chapel to the east; and Buell, Philosophy, and Kent Halls to the southeast. Earl Hall and St. Paul's Chapel are situated along the same west–east axis as Low. This arrangement is part of McKim, Mead & White's design for the campus.;
Low Library steps
Two flights of steps connect the terrace to the South Court;; the library proper is approached by another flight above the terrace. Known as "the Steps", "Low Steps", and occasionally "Low Beach", they are a popular meeting area for Columbia students. They also serve as a connection between the northern and southern sections of Columbia's campus.
One wide flight leads from the South Court to an intermediate landing, and a narrower, leads from the intermediate landing to the terrace.; The narrower flight itself has an intermediate landing containing Alma Mater, a sculpture by Daniel Chester French; that depicts a woman, personifying the traditional image of the university as an alma mater. Hidden in the statue's leg is an owl symbolizing knowledge and learning; according to college superstition, the first member of the incoming class to find the owl will become class valedictorian. The centers of the stairs are slightly curved upward to remove the impression they were sagging.; As a result, the center of each step is about taller than the extreme ends. Smaller sets of staircases connect the intermediate landing to passages at terrace level on the west and east.
Architecture critic Paul Goldberger said of the steps in 1987: "The building itself, for all the power of its immense scale and huge dome, seems almost to recede, deferring to the stairs before it." During Columbia University commencement ceremonies, Columbia's "graduation mace" is customarily carried down the stairs. The stairs have been used for other speeches, such as a 1991 speech by novelist Salman Rushdie after the Iranian government targeted him for assassination.
Architecture
The Low Memorial Library was designed by Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead & White and was built between 1894 and 1897. McKim was assisted in the design by William M. Kendall, Austin W. Lord, and Egerton Swartwout.; The library was designed in the Neoclassical style, incorporating many elements of Rome's Pantheon; and Baths of Caracalla. It was funded by Seth Low, the president of Columbia University and later the mayor of New York City, in memory of his father Abiel Abbot Low.
Form Low is arranged in the shape of a Greek cross, is aligned with the Manhattan street grid, and contains beveled corners. The main walls of the building's Greek cross correspond to the four cardinal directions.; ; ; The cross has a maximum width of . The Greek cross layout had previously been used in several libraries, including the main library of New York University's (NYU) Bronx campus (now Gould Memorial Library on the campus of Bronx Community College) that was designed by McKim's colleague Stanford White.; Low's arrangement, like that of Gould's, is partly inspired by those of the Library of Congress and the British Library. Unlike these other libraries, Low faces away from much of the campus that was built around it.
The building is topped by a round dome made of brick, which is clad on the outside with limestone, and on the inside with steel framing and plaster.; ; The dome has a radius of and a maximum thickness of at the bottom, tapering to at the pinnacle. The steel frame under the dome is made of two thick and wide steel bars. The ceiling of the rotunda beneath is a false ceiling that hangs about below the inner face of the dome. Otherwise, the dome is made of stone that is designed to be self-supporting. The dome was inspired by the Rotunda, the main library designed by Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia, and is also less directly evocative of the dome above the Pantheon.;
Facade
The high base of Low is made of granite.; ; An wide staircase with 22 or 26 steps leads from the terrace to the main entrance portico on the building's south facade. The highest step, the stylobate of the portico, corresponds to the top of the base. The entrance portico consists of an Ionic-style colonnade of ten columns supporting a cornice and attic.; Each of the columns is tall; and has a diameter of . The frieze above the columns reads: "Library of Columbia University".; An inscription above the colonnade describes the university's founding. It reads: King's College Founded in the Province of New York By Royal Charter in the Reign of George II Perpetuated as Columbia College by the People of the State of New York When They Became Free and Independent Maintained and Cherished from Generation to Generation For the Advancement of the Public Good and the Glory of Almighty God
The building was designed with 150 windows, the smallest of which measures . The upper section of the facade is clad in limestone,; ; in contrast with the surrounding buildings, which are generally made of brick with limestone trim.; The west, north, and east walls are designed with pilasters similar in design to the colonnade; the pilasters flank windows that are deeply set into the facade. The corners of the Greek cross also have deeply set windows. The roof of the Greek cross's "arms" is about above the ground level of the terrace.
Above the top of the cross, Low's walls, which rise to above the surrounding terrace, are arranged as an octagonal drum supporting the dome. Each of the four main walls has large, half-round windows that are either across and high, and are evocative of the lunettes atop the Baths of Caracalla. The top of the dome is around above terrace level and above the grade of what was formerly 116th Street.
Features
Low has four stories. The ground level is a raised basement while the first floor is one story above ground.; The first floor's interior consists of an entrance vestibule on the south side of the building that leads to an ambulatory surrounding a central rotunda.; Low's first floor shares design influences with the reading room at the Library of Congress's Thomas Jefferson Building, the Administration Building at the World's Columbian Exposition, and the nearby Grant's Tomb.; The second floor had a gallery on the south arm and closed stacks on the north, east, and west arms. The third floor was devoted entirely to lecture rooms.
The library's stacks were built to store one-and-a-half million volumes. Graduate students used the open stacks and adjacent small reading rooms while undergraduates could use only the closed stacks, using the rotunda as a central reading room. Eighteen small reading rooms were provided. Elmer E. Garnsey was hired to create the library's interior color scheme. , the exhibition space in the building is open to the public from 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Columbia students, staff, and faculty can book the spaces on the first floor for events.
Vestibule, president's room, and trustees' room
Low's main entrance contains bronze and glass entrance doors leading to a double-height vestibule; measuring . The original doors were made of oak; McKim had proposed bronze doors be used but Low rejected the doors as "out of harmony with our ideals and with the ideals of my father". At the entryway are bronze busts of Zeus and Apollo.; The vestibule has a marble floor with red, rust, beige, and gray panels in an octagonal arrangement. George W. Maynard sculpted eight panels with bronze reliefs depicting the twelve zodiac signs; the panels were manufactured by John Williams and displayed at the World's Columbian Exposition, after which they were donated to Columbia University. The vestibule contains a white marble bust of Pallas Athena, which is modeled after Minerve du Collier at the Louvre.; ;
Oak doors on the west and east link to sets of four marble steps, which connect to the former offices of the president and the trustees, respectively. Above these doors are stone architraves with molded leaf-and-dart motifs and lintels with paneling. On either side of the doors are double-height limestone pilasters with gilded capitals. Several portraits were hung in each room. The trustees' room to the east was decorated by the Herter Brothers and has oak paneling. The center of the trustees' room has a Georgian-style fireplace mantel, which contains a broken pediment holding an iron crown from King's College, the predecessor of Columbia University. The mantel has a cornerstone from King's College's original building and a portrait of the college's founding president Samuel Johnson.;
The rest of the vestibule's walls have plaster panels bordered by green-and-gold acanthus-leaf motifs, and band courses with Greek fretwork. Each corner of the vestibule has a pilaster similar to those flanking the west and east doors, as well as a wrought-iron lamp. The south wall has a narrow balcony illuminated by a lattice of crossbars; the north wall is a double window above a set of four steps leading to the rotunda. Laurel leaves and medallions divide the vestibule's ceiling into nine coffers. The central coffer has a bronze lantern above the Pallas Athena bust.;
Ambulatory