1. Kansas City Public Library
Where: Kansas City, Missouri
The precast concrete columns that line KC’s downtown public library parking garage were given quite the exterior when the library was revealed to the public in 2004.
A total of 22 book spines feature 42 titles.
The book titles that are painted on the exterior were suggested by Kansas City residents and selected by the Library’s Board of Trustees.
These are the titles featured on the Community Bookshelf:
- 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- Black Elk Speaks by Black Elk
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
- Children’s Stories (an anthology)
- Cien Años de Soledad by Gabriel García Márquez (Spanish edition of 100 Years of Solitude)
- Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- Farm: A Year in the Life of an American Farmer by Richard Rhodes
- Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
- Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
- Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
- Journals of the Expedition by Lewis and Clark
- Journeys Through Time: A Young Traveler’s Guide to Kansas City History by Monroe Dodd
- Kansas City Stories (a short story anthology)
- Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
- M.C. Higgins, the Great by Virginia Hamilton
- Messages From My Father by Calvin Trillin
- Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell
- Mr. Anonymous: The Story of William Volker by Herbert C. Cornuelle
- O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
- PrairyErth (a deep map) by William Least Heat-Moon
- Republic by Plato
- Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
- Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
- Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu
- Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- Tom’s Town by William M. Reddig
- Truman by David McCullough
- Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West by Stephen E. Ambrose
- What a Wonderful World by George David Weiss and Bob Thiele
- Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
- Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
The KC Public Library actually features as a location in our guide on where to donate books in Kansas City!
Who knew a library parking garage could have such a unique story?
2. Library Les Méjanes
Where: Aix-en-Provence, France
This library, housed in a former match factory, features three large book facades on its exterior. These are designed to look like the spines of well-known French literary works.
The titles represented on the exterior are:
- The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- The Stranger by Albert Camus
- The Imaginary Invalid by Molière
3. Karabük University Library
Where: Kamil Güleç, Turkey
Our final showpiece in “libraries that look like books” takes us to the Mediterranean, and the incredible looking university library at Karabük University.
It’s unclear which giant titles line the walls of this particular library, as you can only make out so much from photos and the script is all in Turkish, obviously. Still, this is a wonderful end to our brief story on bookish looking libraries!