The 20 Best Designed College Libraries in the U.S.

The most obvious reason to go into a college library is to study, but there are some across the country that provide more than just a spot to cram for exams. The George Peabody Library at Johns Hopkins University has the option to hold a 200-person dinner, while the Riggs Library at Georgetown regularly hosts high-profile guest speakers. These libraries are doing their initial job by keeping rare books and manuscripts, while also going above and beyond in appearance.

Enjoy The 20 Best Designed College Libraries In The U.S. and visit them if you're ever in the neighborhood.

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Location: New York
Architect: James Gamble Rogers

The exterior of Butler Library has a sophisticated look due to its immense size, square-patterned floor, and lined up pillars with names inscribed of great writers, philosophers, and thinkers above the front entrance. It's interior matches with several stacks of bookshelves, study tables, and chandeliers. The library's design is a neo-classical style created by James Gamble Rogers.

Location: Chapel Hill, N.C.
Architect: Arthur C. Nash

From the outside, it looks like this library can be a monument found in Washington D.C. The Louis Round Wilson Library has an impressive collection of Southern books and also has an impressive interior. Every room has a distinct feel and décor. The Main Reading Room, alone, has leather-covered doors, wood-paneled walls, and patterned marble floors.

Location: Chicago
Architect: Soloman Cordwell Buenz

Soloman Cordwell Buenz designed this library perfectly in order for students to get an oceanic view. The three-story building is placed right at the edge where the window-walls make it easy to see the waters.

Location: Princeton, N.J.
Architect: Frank Gehry

The Lewis Library was opened in 2008, making it one of the newest libraries on this list. The exterior is fun to look at, but once inside a new definition of fun will commence. The library is decorated with elaborate window placements and bright colors on individual walls. There is also a room inside the building called the Treehouse, where students can study with Avatar-like white lighting dangling from the ceiling.

Location: San Diego
Architect: William Pereira

If the unique structure of the building wasn't cool enough, the entryway to the library is also an art installation by John Baldessari. The front doors, each of different colored glass, have the words Read, Write, Think, and Dream shown above the doors.

Location: New Haven, Conn.
Architect: Gordon Bunshaft

Windows will not be found in this library. Beinecke was built using translucent marble panels to keep the harsh sunlight from damaging the books and manuscripts being kept inside. This library is one of the largest buildings in the world devoted entirely to rare books and manuscripts.

Location: Ann Arbor, Mich.
Architect: Edward York and Philip Sawyer

Two words: extremely detailed. Everywhere you look, the William W. Cook Legal Research Library reveals something that wasn't quite seen the first time around. The metal work found within the library was done by the best metal worker during the time of building in 1931, Samuel Yellin. In 2008, the Reading Room inside the library was restored and more lighting was installed to bring out the intricate decorations of the ceiling and chandeliers.

Location: Seattle
Architect: Carl F. Gould, Sr. and Charles H. Bebb

The outside of Suzzallo Library is just as intricate as the interior. The exterior consists of sandstone, precast stone, and brick with a slate roof. The leaded and stained glass windows are found all around the building. Inside, Suzzallo looks similar to a cathedral. There is also a grand staircase that takes you from the first to third floor.

Location: Pughkeepsie, N.Y.
Architect: Francis R. Allen and Charles Collens

The Perpendicular Gothic styled building is assembled from Germantown stone and Indiana limestone trimming. Below the ceiling windows in the entrance are university seals, some of which were once all-male institutions to remind the women of Vassar that their education is at equal levels of their male counterparts'.

Location: Bethlehem, Pa.
Architect: Addison Hutton

Linderman library houses classrooms, a picturesque rotunda found above, and more than 20,000 books. It was completed by architect Addison Hutton, but was later renovated in 2007 by MGA partners. Renovations kept the beauty of the original designs but added a snack bar, because what's studying without some brain food?

Location: Washington D.C.
Architect: Paul Pelz

It's a shame that students can no longer use this space as a 'go-to' study spot, because the architecture is memorizing. This cast-iron four-story library has been opened since 1891 and is now used for scheduled events and lectures.

Location: Baltimore
Architect: Edmund G. Lind

The George Peabody Library serves more than just a place to study; it can also be reserved for cocktail parties, intimate lunches, and elegant dinners. The five tiers of cast-iron balconies surrounding the main floor of the library were typical of Baltimore architecture in the 1850s. The bookshelves contain over 300,000 books, mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries. Look up and find a sky roof 61 feet away from the black and white patterned floor. Although it's a vast room, the warmly lit library can give off an intimate sentiment.

Location: Ithica, N.Y.
Architect: William Henry Miller

This three-story library was constructed by one of Cornell's graduates, William Henry Miller. Bookshelves — which seem to be endless by the illusion of how the library is constructed — can be reached by iron staircases and bridges found next to and above people sitting in the desks of the magenta carpeted floor. Memorabilia of Cornell's co-founder and first president Andrew Dickson White can be found placed around the library.

Location: Waco, Texas
Architect: Eggers and Higgins, Wyatt C. Hedrick, and S. B. Swigert Construction Company

Armstrong Browning Library has been known to attract over 25,000 people a year to visit the building filled with history and impeccable Italian Renaissance-styled architecture. The three-story building has exterior walls of Indiana limestone and the front terrace is perfected with granite steps. When inside, marble columns and intricate ceiling designs will mesmerize anyone. The library has the largest array of stained glass in the world, housing a collection of 62 illustrative stained glass windows found from room to room. It also holds a prominent compilation of paintings, drawings, and sketches.

Location: Chicago
Architect: Helmut Jahn

A library like this couldn't have been more perfectly placed in any other city. Chicago, experiencing all seasons the way they should, gives this window-roofed building the opportunity to take advantage of all the breathtaking weathers mother nature has to offer; including snow, rain, wind, and sun. No longer will students feel trapped in an ordinary four-walled room when the outside views are found all around them. The Joe and Rika Mansueto Library is where engineering and unique design come together to make up one of the most inimitable libraries in the U.S.

Location: Los Angeles
Architect: Robert David Farquhar

It may seem like a normal building from the outside, despite the perfectly trimmed grass out front and the statue placed perfectly centered in front of the entrance, but once inside, it will be like stepping into a different world. Holding some of the most comprehensive rare books and manuscripts in the U.S. — including Oscar Wilde — this two-story library is heavily detailed with Renaissance compositions. Besides the five-colored brickwork found in the building, there are also stunning paintings and drawings found throughout rooms, each bordered with a detailed frame. Need to get an art museum fix in? Take a trip to Clark Library.

Location: Boston
Architect: Charles Donagh Maginnis

Bapst Library has been compared to the buildings found in Harry Potter, and it's not hard to see why. The library has been claimed by Campus Groto to be the most beautiful college library and it's also one of the finest examples of collegiate Gothic architecture in the U.S. With the detailed stained glass surrounding the perimeter of the immense room, you'd think you were in a traditional cathedral if it weren't for the tall book shelves, long tables lined up on each side of the room, and all the students cramming for finals.

Location: Philadelphia
Architect: Frank Furness

Feeling like a fairytale, this library is nothing less of beautiful. The Fine Arts Library has a mix of Gothic and Victorian architecture included with a spiral staircase. The all brick walls combined with the detailed iron accents on the crevices of the ceiling, along with the warm color tones, gives the space a surreal vibe. Choose one of the short tunnel-like entrances surrounding the main room of the library to find a book or to have a more secluded spot to study. The library is completed with its own flare by having quotes inscribed in the windows and in other random places in the library.

Location: Chicago
Architect: Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge

The outside of William Rainey Harper Memorial Library is just as breathtaking as the interior. With its Gothic-themed architecture, the exterior of the library has towers on each side of the building that seem similar in measurements, but are very different from each other in profile. Buildings at Cambridge and Oxford inspired the overall design of the building.

Location: San Francisco
Architect: Milton T. Pflueger

Beautiful inside and out, the Gleeson Library accommodates 8,000 students at a time. Whatever mood students are in, whether they want to lay out in the grassy lawn in front of the building, or grab a seat by one of the window-walls overlooking the rest of the campus, the Gleeson Library is the perfect place to study and the exact environment you need to relax while basking in a college campus' beauty.