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Architecture for Reading in Public

Henri Labrouste's Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve

Neil Levine

$124.95

Hardback

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English
Yale University Press
21 October 2025
An in-depth look at the iconic mid-nineteenth-century building and its construction during a period of revolution and its transformative impact on the history of architecture

Since its completion in 1850, the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève has been heralded as a major forerunner of modern architecture. The architect Henri Labrouste, a product of the École des Beaux-Arts, broke with the reigning neoclassical tradition by expressing on the exterior the building's internal functions and exposing on the interior the unprecedented iron construction of its reading room. Underlying these radical departures from tradition was a new democratic form of spatial organization appropriate to the new reading public.

Acclaimed architectural historian Neil Levine presents both a building history—discussing the significance of the program, site, prehistory, and building process—and a window into a period of momentous historical change by contextualizing Labrouste's work within the revolutionary times of the latter part of the July Monarchy and Second Republic in France. He examines how the building communicates a public purpose through its anticlassical, nonhierarchic, egalitarian form and reveals how the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève is the product of a poetic architectural intelligence mixed with radical, democratic ideals.
By:  
Imprint:   Yale University Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 279mm,  Width: 216mm, 
ISBN:   9780300275339
ISBN 10:   0300275331
Pages:   296
Publication Date:  
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Neil Levine is Emmet Blakeney Gleason Professor Emeritus of the History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. He is the author of Modern Architecture: Representation and Reality.

Reviews for Architecture for Reading in Public: Henri Labrouste's Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve

“[Levine] has been thinking and writing about this library since his days as a student. The book has chapters devoted to everything from the library’s design to its construction, and features abundant color illustrations. It is, like its subject, inviting to the public, conceptually ambitious, and beautiful.”—Cammy Brothers, Wall Street Journal, “Holiday Gift Books: Architecture” “Architecture for Reading in Public is a profound work of scholarship with considerable new discoveries stemming from the author’s decades of engagement with Henri Labrouste’s iconic building. This is an essential and long-awaited book.”—Barry Bergdoll, Columbia University “Architecture for Reading in Public brings flawless scholarship and fresh perspectives gained throughout the rich and productive career of a distinguished architectural historian.”—Antoine Picon, Harvard University “Neil Levine’s brilliant, clear, and fascinating overview of the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève is a seminal model of architectural history.”—Alice Thomine-Berrada, Beaux-Arts de Paris


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