Benjamin Franklin mosaic quote - Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL
Posted by: 
adgorn
N 41° 52.986 W 087° 37.494
16T E 448152 N 4636985
Honoring Ben Franklin for founding of the circulating library, in mosaic, along an ornate stairway in what used to be the main library for Chicago, now a cultural center.
Waymark Code: WM40ZR
Location: Illinois, United States
Date Posted: 06/21/2008
Views: 65
The mosaic reads:
"BORN MDCCVI BENJAMIN FRANKLIN DIED MDCCXC
FOVNDER OF THE CIRCVLATING LIBRARY"
Designed by the Boston firm of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge as the first home of the Chicago Public Library, now the Chicago Cultural Center was completed in 1897. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and designated a Chicago Landmark by the City Council on November 15, 1976.
The Beaux Arts style was influenced by the buildings of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. The building's interior features rooms modeled on the Doge's Palace in Venice, the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, and the Acropolis in Athens. Its lush ornamentation includes two stained-glass domes, rare marbles inlaid with sparkling mosaics, and intricate, coffered ceilings.
from (
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"This is the first permanent structure of the city's public library system. Designed to be a grand civic building, its Classical Revival-style exterior appearance and its interior spaces are based on classical Greek and Italian Renaissance precedents. The interior is extensively decorated with mosaics, marbles, bronze, and two stained-glass domes, (one) designed by the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company."