The most beautifully obscure library in the world?

Posted on February 16, 2007 by cicada

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Just looking at this photostream makes me feel like I’m in an Umberto Eco novel!

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This is the Real Gabinete Portugues de Leitura (Royal Portuguese Reading Room) in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Founded in 1837 with books sent over from Portugal, it remains a functional public library today. And yet I’d never heard of it. It’s not even listed in the Wikipedia (en) article on landmark libraries. Scandal!

More beautiful library eye-candy:

The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World by Guillaume de Laubier, Jacques Bosser, and James Billington.

Libraries by Candida Hofer and (gasp!) Umberto Eco.

(And if you haven’t read The Name of the Rose, do that too).

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3 Responses to The most beautifully obscure library in the world?

  1. Sciencesque says:
    February 19, 2007 at 6:56 am

    What a beautiful room! The problem with today’s libraries is that they’re too safe. Not enough high shelves on narrow walkways. Not enough danger. This one has all the danger you’d expect from a library. Even the “Por favor, não mexa nos livres” signs. Imagine the rush you’d get from dodging the old librarian and reaching for some dusty Portuguese volume of forbidden knowledge!

  2. mdvlist says:
    February 19, 2007 at 10:57 am

    Can I confess that I never made it through “The Name of the Rose?” I got all bogged down reading the non-English passages and before I knew it, the thing had come due at the library twice already, so I gave up and took it back. Maybe if the library in question had looked like this one I would have finished it . . . .

  3. peacay says:
    February 23, 2007 at 10:50 am

    Beee oooot i full !

    You’ve seen this right?

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