Henri Labrouste (French, 1801-1875). Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, 1854-1875. View of the reading room. © Georges Fessy

Can you imagine the New York Public Library, or the Boston Public Library, or, really, any iconic library without its reading room? Those high-ceilinged, cavernous sanctuaries lined with reference books and decorated with painted murals? Well, believe it or not, someone actually is credited with creating the reading room–and by extension the modern library. His name: Henri Labrouste, a French architect whose experiments with new materials and light, as well as his utopian ideals, had a profound impact on not just 19th-century architecture but also intellectual life and thought. A new exhibition, “Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light,” at the Museum of Modern Art from March 10 to June 24, highlights this little-known designer’s work as a key milestone in the evolution of modern architecture, and libraries in particular. Read more!

Bibliothèque Sainte‐Geneviève, Paris, 1838‐1850. View of the reading room. Photo: Michel Nguyen © Bibliothèque Sainte‐Geneviève/Michel Nguyen

Steel trusses of the reading room at the Bibliothèque Sainte‐Geneviève. Photo: © Priscille Leroy.

Before Labrouste, libraries were private places—in residences or monasteries or educational buildings that passersby could not enter. So when he embarked on designing Paris’s Bibliothèque Sainte‐Geneviève (1838-1850), and later the Bibliothèque Nationale (1854-1875), he had to start from scratch. ”It’s not that he invented the library,” says Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s chief curator of architecture and design. “But he was the first person to think [of] what happens when you open the doors of the library to the public–how to create a place that’s large and open but where you can go and concentrate and be by yourself.”

These two masterpieces—magisterial glass-and-iron rooms—gave form to “the idea of the modern library as a machine for knowledge and a space for contemplation.” They combined classic, antiquity-inspired design with the latest materials and building technologies, with their exposed modern frameworks, detailed masonry walls, and new mechanical systems and forms of heating and light. (Indeed, because of their heat and their gas lights, these libraries could stay open well into the night, a revolutionary change that made nearby university students very happy.) And they treated the books themselves as works of art, displaying them on shelves lining the perimeter of the room.

A plan for the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève © Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris

Henri Labrouste, Le Panthéon à Rome, élévation latérale du portique et profil d’un pilastre, [1825-1830] © Académie d’Architecture, Paris

“Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light” comprises more than 200 works, including models of the two libraries, photographs, films, and Labrouste’s original drawings (including watercolors he made as a student in Italy), vintage and modern photographs, films, and models. The exhibition concludes with an examination of the architect’s diverse and extensive influence, from his students and early followers to contemporary practitioners.

In light of all the changes rocking public libraries around the world—shrinking budgets, shuttering branches, digitization—Labrouste’s temples to learning could appear like relics of a more print-centric age. But as the library adapts to the postmodern era, Labrouste’s revolutionary, idealistic approach to architecture, innovation, and learning provide perhaps precisely the kind of inspiration that will allow designers to reshape and catapult the library into the 21st century.