Interior of a grand neoclassical library reading room. Tall sienna scagliola columns in the foreground; curved wooden bookshelves packed with coloured spines fill the background. Warm stone pilasters and a curved colonnade recede into the distance.

Scagliola Columns and Bookshelves, Manchester Reference Library

28 September 2019 · Manchester

Sienna scagliola columns occupy the foreground with the full material weight of the curved colonnade behind them. The shelves lining the curved wall are packed with coloured spines — blue, red, burgundy, green — each row a dense catalogue pressed against neoclassical stonework. The columns do the architectural heavy lifting; the books do the institutional one. Together they make a room that was built to mean something.

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