Art & Architecture Libraries
Special Collections
The Architecture Library's Special Collections have specific guidelines for their use. Registration is required for first time users (bring photo id). Access to the collections is by appointment only.
Please contact Patricia Kosco Cossard by email or call her at 301-405-6316.
Digital Collections & Tools
A Treasury of World's Fair Art and Architecture
World's Fair Overview: A Virtual Exhibit
World's Fair Collection Aid
World's Fair Ephemera Collection Box Inventory
Modern Interior Decoration: Architecture Pochoir Plates
World's Fair Collection
InventoryThe Architecture Library's World's Fair Collection is of particular interest to scholars and students. This collection contains books relating to world's fairs and international expositions ranging from the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition in London, to the present.
The books in the World's Fair Collection are searchable in the Library catalog. Use this search box to search only in the World's Fair Collection.
The World's Fair Collection also contains ephemeral and graphic materials including stereographs, a stereograph viewer, prints and illustrations, scrapbooks, sheet music, periodicals, maps, pamphlets, memorabilia and ephemera. The ephemera comprises trade cards, tickets, exhibitor entry forms, postcards, menus, souvenir ribbons and scarves. Fairs represented range from the 1851 London exhibition through (at present) the 1970 Osaka exhibition. Holdings are strongest for the 1851 London exhibition, the 1876 Philadelphia exhibition, and the 1893 Chicago Exposition. A full listing of the ephemeral and graphic materials can be found in the inventory and the finding aid.
The Architecture Library's Special Collections have specific guidelines for their use.
Rare Books
The Architecture Library houses a collection of some 1700 rare, special, and fragile books which includes original editions and facsimiles of standard architectural treatises (Vitruvius, Palladio, Claude Perrault, J.N. Durand, and Isaac Ware, among others). The Architecture Library Special Collections are strong in important 20th century European imprints, having many scarce original editions in this area (writings by J.J. Oud, Adolf Loos, Tony Garnier, Le Corbusier, and Gropius, among others).The oldest book in the collection is the second edition of Giovanni Antonio Rusconi's I Dieci Libri D'Architettura, published in Venice in 1660. This posthumously published treatise is a summary of Vitruvius' De Architectura, a marriage of highly effective illustrations to concise text, is considered the last treatise of the Renaissance published in the sixteenth century.
The rare book collection also contains the pochoir folio Henry Delacroix. Decoration Moderne Dans L'Interieur. Ed. Art and Architecture, ca. 1930. The book contains brilliantly colored pochoir images of home interiors and other architectural elements in the Art Deco and Art Nouveau style. To learn more, please visit the virtual exhibit, Modern Interior Decoration: Architecture Pochoir Plates.
Gift Collections
The Art Library's gift collections--books and other materials acquired by the library through the generous donations of benefactors--include the Dr. George Levitine Collection, the Dr. Josephine Withers Collection, the Anthony Geber Collection, the Dr. Mark Sandler Collection, and the Dr. Penny Morrill Collection. Most recently the Art Library was pleased to accept a generous donation from the personal library of Mr. Robert H. Smith.
The Art Library collects and maintains donated documentation on the professional accomplishments of faculty in the Department of Art, including such ephemeral items as exhibition announcements and smaller-format exhibition catalogues. These vertical files and their contents comprise a non-circulating collection for in-library use; they are housed in cabinets located in the photocopy room.
