Library

1. Bristol Central Library | England
Collected by: Md. Nural Hoque Amin
Bristol Central Library is a historic building on
the south side of College Green, Bristol,
England. It contains the main collections of
Bristol’s public library. Built in 1906, is fascinating
for its influential and unique combination of
architectural styles. The front exterior was
designed in Tudor Revival and Modern
Movement styles in order to allow it to
harmonize with the next-door Abbey
Gatehouse. It was built on a slope, and the
front of the building is only three stories tall,
but thanks to the two basement levels built into
the hill, the back of the building has five stories.

2. Collected by: Md. Nural Hoque Amin
Trinity College Library | Ireland
Aside from being absolutely gorgeous this
is also the largest library in all of Ireland.
This is the library of Trinity College and the
University of Dublin, and serves as the
country’s copyright library, where a copy
of all new books and periodicals must be
sent when they apply for copyright
protection. It is also the only Irish library to
hold such rights for the United Kingdom.
The Library is the permanent home to the
famous Book of Kells, an illuminated
manuscript created by Celtic monks around
the year 800.

3. Austrian National Library | Austria
Collected by: Md. Nural Hoque Amin
Located in the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, the
Austrian National Library is the largest library
in Austria with 7.4 million items in its various
collections. The library was completed in 1723
and features sculptures by Lorenzo Mattielli
and Peter Strudel and frescoes by Daniel Gran.
The library complex includes four museums, as
well as multiple special collections and
archives.

4. Wiblingen Monastery Library | Germany
Collected by: Md. Nural Hoque Amin
Completed in 1744, the monastery library,
located in the north wing of Wiblingen
Abbey. Its exquisite Rococo interior
features an ornamental, winding gallery
supported by multiple columns. The
numerous statues and sweeping ceiling
fresco represent the architect’s vision that
the library be a place for preserving
“treasures of wisdom and science”. Just
outside the library there is an inscription
reading “In quo omnes thesauri sapientiae
et scientiae,” which translates to “In which
are stored all treasures of knowledge and
science.”

5. Biblioteca-Geral-University-of-Coimbra
Collected by: Md. Nural Hoque Amin
The General Library of the University of
Coimbra consists of two buildings: the
New Building built in 1962, and the
Joanina Library. Once referred to as
“The House of the Bookshop” Joanina
library is one of the top five libraries in
the world. Now called Biblioteca
Joanina, this Baroque library was built
between 1717 and 1728, during the reign
of King João V of Portugal. Inside the
library, there are three great rooms
divided by ornate arches. The rooms,
with highly decorated ceilings, are rich
in gilt and exotic wood and the walls
are covered by two-storied shelves of
books. Nowadays Biblioteca Joanina is
a Portuguese National Monument and
one of the University’s main tourist
attractions.

6. The Library of El Escorial | Spain
Collected by: Md. Nural Hoque Amin
This library is located in the Royal Seat of
San Lorenzo de El Escorial, the historical
residence of the king of Spain. The Escorial
is a vast building complex in central Spain.
The building is the most important
architectural monument of the Spanish
Renaissance. Construction of El Escorial
began in 1563 and ended in 1584. Phillip II
was responsible for adding the library and
most of the books originally held within.
The vaulted ceilings were painted with
gorgeous frescoes, each representing one
of the seven liberal arts: rhetoric, dialectic,
music, grammar, arithmetic, geometry and
astronomy.

7. Bibliotheque Nationale de France | France
Collected by: Md. Nural Hoque Amin
The Bibliothèque nationale de France is the
National Library of France, located in
Paris. It has expanded greatly since new
buildings were added to house the
collection in 1988. Even so, the old buildings
on the Rue de Richelieu are still in use, and
are utterly gorgeous as well. The library
holds about 5,000 Greek manuscripts, which
are divided into three fonds: Ancien fonds
grec, fonds Coislin, and Fonds du
Supplément grec.

8. Admont Abbey Library | Austria
Collected by: Md. Nural Hoque Amin
Built in 1776, the Admont Abbey Library is 70
metres long, 14 metres wide and 13 metres
high, and is the largest monastery library
in the world. It contains c. 70,000 volumes of
the monastery’s entire holdings of c. 200,000
volumes. The ceiling is adorned with
frescoes depicting the stages of human
knowledge up until the Divine Revelation.
The entire design reflects the ideals and
values of the Enlightenment.

9. Strahov Monastery Library | Czech Republic
Collected by: Md. Nural Hoque Amin
This breathtaking library spot 2nd in our
list of world’s most beautiful libraries. This
impressive library collection contains over
200,000 volumes, of which 3,000 are original
manuscripts. It is made up of two
wonderful halls linked by a passageway.
The Theological Hall with its attractive
stuccowork contains mostly literature of a
theological nature and thousands of
editions of the Bible.

10. Abbey Library of St. Gallen | Switzerland
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Collected by: Md. Nural Hoque Amin
Abbey Library of St. Gallen is
undoubtedly one of the world’s most
beautiful libraries. This lovely library is
not only the oldest in Switzerland, but
one of the oldest and most important
monastery libraries in the world. The
library holds almost 160,000 volumes
many of which date back as far as the
8th century. The Rococo-styled library is
often considered one of the most
perfect libraries in the world and has
earned the Abbey recognition as a
World Heritage Site.