Top 10 Most Beautiful Libraries in the World

The Bodleian Library, one of the oldest libraries in Europe and the main research library of Oxford University, has been accumulating books since 1602. Its Divinity School (1488) — the oldest purpose-built university building in Britain — and the 17th-century Schools Quadrangle create one of England's great architectural ensembles. The library legally receives a copy of every book published in the UK.

The George Peabody Library in Baltimore, opened in 1878, is often called "the Cathedral of Books." Its soaring five-storey cast-iron atrium, with tiered balconies of book-lined galleries rising to a glass skylight, is one of the most extraordinary library interiors in the United States. The library holds approximately 300,000 volumes of pre-20th-century works.

OMA's Seattle Central Library (2004) is one of the most radical public buildings of the 21st century: a transparent glass and steel mesh structure that spirals upward through programmatic "platforms" and "mountains." Its continuous book spiral organizes the Dewey Decimal system as a single unbroken ramp, and the fluorescent yellow "mixing chamber" computer lab is unlike any room in any library on Earth.

The Real Gabinete Portugues de Leitura in Rio de Janeiro, completed in 1887, is considered the most beautiful library in the Americas. Its Neo-Manueline facade is covered in intricate Portuguese stonework, and its interior — a three-storey galleried hall rising to an iron and glass skylight — houses the largest collection of Portuguese-language works outside Portugal: 350,000 volumes.

The Strahov Monastery Library in Prague contains two extraordinary Baroque halls: the Theological Hall (1679) and the Philosophical Hall (1794). Their elaborately frescoed vaulted ceilings and floor-to-ceiling gilded shelves create an atmosphere of overwhelming beauty. The library houses over 200,000 volumes including illuminated manuscripts and incunabula dating to the 10th century.

Yi Architects' Stuttgart City Library (2011) is one of the most striking contemporary library buildings in the world: a pure white cube with five levels of symmetric bookshelves rising above a central cubic atrium. Lit from above by a skylight, the interior creates an otherworldly effect of floating in a white void surrounded by books — simultaneously calming and inspiring.

The Library of Congress's Thomas Jefferson Building (1897) is the most ornate public building in the United States: its Great Hall features marble floors, bronze balustrades, and a domed main reading room topped with a stunning coffered ceiling. As the largest library in the world by number of items (170+ million), it is also among the most architecturally extraordinary.