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Libraries
Libraries are a book producer's dream. Since nobody photographs libraries as beautifully as Hofer, it seemed only natural to dedicate one of her publications to the splendid and intimate cathedrals of knowledge across Europe and the US: the Escorial in Spain, the Whitney Museum in New york, Villa Medici in Rome, the Hamburg University library, the Bibliotheque nationale de France in Paris, the Museo Archeologico in Madrid, and Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, to name just a few. Almost completely devoid of people, as is Candida Hofer's trademark, these pictures radiate a comforting serenity that is exceptional in contemporary photography. Now available in an unchanged reprint.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
2 people are currently reading
1941 people want to read
About the author
Candida Höfer
34 books11 followersCandida Höfer (German, b.1944) is a photographer known for her large-format images of architectural interiors, which address the psychological environment of social and cultural institutions by acknowledging how public spaces are designed to accommodate and inform the public. After completing studies at the Cologne Werkschule, she enrolled in the Düsseldorf School of Art, where she was taught by Bernd and Hilla Becher, heavily influenced by the formal qualities of the austere documentary photography they endorsed.
Along with fellow German artists Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, and Thomas Ruff, Höfer's work became internationally recognized in the 1980s, and her subject matter expanded to include a myriad of places rooted in cultural formation and preservation, including museums, libraries, universities, theaters, civic centers, and historic sites. She has held numerous solo exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States, and her work has been included in several group shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Documenta XI in Kassel, and the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. In 2003, Höfer represented Germany in the Venice Biennale with fellow compatriot, Martin Kippenberger. She lives and works in Cologne, Germany.
Along with fellow German artists Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, and Thomas Ruff, Höfer's work became internationally recognized in the 1980s, and her subject matter expanded to include a myriad of places rooted in cultural formation and preservation, including museums, libraries, universities, theaters, civic centers, and historic sites. She has held numerous solo exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States, and her work has been included in several group shows at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Documenta XI in Kassel, and the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. In 2003, Höfer represented Germany in the Venice Biennale with fellow compatriot, Martin Kippenberger. She lives and works in Cologne, Germany.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews
May 5, 2020
SQUEEEEE!!!
It's nothing but page after page of drool-worthy library porn to make you swoon, PLUS one nifty little essay by Umberto Eco.
This rather hefty tome is pretty pricey, so I recommend borrowing it from a library (your local one will suffice). Then let the squeals of joy begin.
It's nothing but page after page of drool-worthy library porn to make you swoon, PLUS one nifty little essay by Umberto Eco.
This rather hefty tome is pretty pricey, so I recommend borrowing it from a library (your local one will suffice). Then let the squeals of joy begin.
August 21, 2007
This is pure porn & it will probably make you cry. Unless, of course, you've been to or live near any of the libraries featured. I needed a cigarette and a shower after reading this & I don't smoke.
January 10, 2008
This is truly some of the best book porn I've ever come across -- pictures of books in some of the greatest modern collections. Absolutely nothing decorates a wall better than books.
January 21, 2008
As a professor of mine said last week: the internet is nice, but what would we do without libraries?
Hoefer's photographs bring out all the beauty that libraries and books have. The ancient, the modern, and everything else is shown through an eye that knows what she's looking at and why we should look at it too. Anyone into libraries, books, or photography is gonna dig this.
Hoefer's photographs bring out all the beauty that libraries and books have. The ancient, the modern, and everything else is shown through an eye that knows what she's looking at and why we should look at it too. Anyone into libraries, books, or photography is gonna dig this.
March 3, 2015
absolutely beautiful book with full page photos of some of the amazing libraries in the world...public and university...there aren't any private libraries unfortunately. there is also a beautiful preface of an essay by umberto eco. if you love books, you have to see these photos. I would recommend getting it out of your local library as it would be very expensive to buy.
July 14, 2020
Fears for the future of libraries, 1981: “The worst will come when microfiches have completely supplanted the book.” Hopes for future libraries, 1981: Open stacks and a “unified card-index.” #1 most beautiful library: Biblioteca Nacional, Rio de Janeiro. To view dozens of other gorgeous contenders from around the world and reflect upon your library dreams and nightmares, read Candida Höfer’s Libraries and pick a favorite of your own.
March 12, 2015
Library porn. Beautiful photos of venerable libraries (eg Radcliffe, Oxford). Not many people and no exteriors, just shelves and books and furniture, statues, painted ceilings etc. Lovely. However I wondered - would I rather work in one of these or my current library which at times is more like a cross between a canteen and youth club, noisy and vibrant (although there are silent study areas). I've come to the conclusion I would miss our crowded and not particularly beautiful building.
I wanted to put up pictures of interesting exteriors, but can't seem to do it. But look up Kansas public library, or my home city's central library:
http://i3.birminghampost.co.uk/incomi...
I wanted to put up pictures of interesting exteriors, but can't seem to do it. But look up Kansas public library, or my home city's central library:
http://i3.birminghampost.co.uk/incomi...
May 6, 2009
It took forever to track this book down after I read about it years ago in Wallpaper or some other glossy rag. I finally had to special order it, but it was worth the wait - any library lover will swoon at the images and immediately start planning to build their own mini-version (ours is still a work in progress, but someday, someday, it will have beautiful hand-crafted shelves and we will be able to throw away our ikea particleboard.)
March 4, 2022
Picture book - quick read. I did enjoy the essay, and the pictures were good, but I like a bit more "meat"
June 19, 2023
Gorgeous book!
March 8, 2010
A funny introduction by Umberto Eco gives this large tome a starting point from which to think about these photographs of the interiors of large libraries. Are you one who prefers the traditional feel and atmosphere of libraries? Or one who loves the contemporary architecture of the new? These photographs were taken over approximately 30 years in Europe and the Americas. Notable exclusions is the large contemporary public library in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and the many architecture award winning libraries in Australia.
October 26, 2009
Features an unusual introduction by Umberto Eco and full-page photographs by Hofer. There are some beautiful, antiquated libraries shown in this book and some stark and empty ones too. Only two pictures showed patrons using the library. There was one photogrpah of empty, green shelves in a Parisian library- not exactly inspiring.
January 13, 2011
A glorious, jubilant array of images taken of libraries from around the world. The magnificence of rows and rows of books and wonderful architecture are every bit as good as the front cover promises.
October 14, 2025
I've yet to get my hands on a copy, but I've been excited about this book ever since I heard about it. Edit 2023: Finally got a copy and enjoyed thoroughly/
July 28, 2009
This is very appropriate for me since I read most of my photography books at libraries. I sit and drool over this book. Actually I have read and looked longingly about 4 or 5 times.
June 30, 2010
Engaging photography of some of History's greatest libraries.
December 2, 2009
Absolutely gorgeous!!
November 24, 2009
WOW, WOW, I hope I can get a job in one of these libraries.
May 16, 2011
For library-freaks like me.
May 19, 2011
you know you're a total geek when you get a book featuring beautiful shots of libraries around the world for christmas. and you like it.
June 25, 2011
Beautiful. Breathtaking. Book porn.
wish-list
December 15, 2011beneran wish-list. harganya mahaaal bangeeet
February 16, 2018
Beautiful photographs of libraries all around the globe. I love how Hofer captures many or these images without people in them.
June 29, 2009
Gorgeous, gorgeous photography. A bibliophile's dream come true.
Read
August 29, 2017Library perfection can be found on p.104, the Bibliothek Reiner Speck, Köln. But: consider the two-tone chevron floors in the Biblioteca Nacional Rio de Janeiro!! (pp.249--253)
I'm reading this in the Bowes Art & Architecture Library at Stanford, which has a bunch of imitation Saarinen womb chairs and is spectacularly sunny:
https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/st...
Other library nostalgia sparked by reading this:
1. Listening to recordings of J.L. Austin in a soundproof room in the British Library (p.57)
2. Reading about Wittgenstein on rule-following in the Library of Congress, with my notes constantly sliding down the glass-topped desks and crazy people walking around and around the circular reading room (not pictured)
3. Requesting old crumbling 1930 Street & Smith's hard boiled detective magazines that Wittgenstein liked to read (see Monk's The Duty of Genius, p.423) in the Radcliffe Camera (p.61)
4. Cramming for philosophy exams under the disgusting yellow lights of the PPE reading room in the Bodleian (not pictured)
5. Looking at all the B&W pictures of the great dead 20c philosophers in the old philosophy sub-faculty library on Merton Street (not pictured)
6. Oxford college libraries: Merton, Brasenose, Mansfield (not pictured) and faculty libraries: The overwhelming moldy smell of the Politics Library, checking out Terry Eagleton books from the modern English and Law faculty library
7. Reading Austin’s Philosophical Papers in the New York Public Library’s reading room to escape the summer heat, thinking about the scene in The Day After Tomorrow when the reading room floods then freezes (p.19)
8. Reading right-wing cold war publications about (fanciful) Soviet military superiority in the low-ceilinged attic stacks at Fresno State in the mid-1980s (not pictured)
9. Years and years and years reading and making photocopies and paying big fines in University of Chicago’s Regenstein library, which James Redfield, in Nature and Culture in the Iliad calls "a machine for learning", and the brand new Mansueto reading room, which opened the year I finished:
http://images.adsttc.com/media/images...
10. Reading the paper in a red armchair as a guest in the London Library (p.47)
I'm reading this in the Bowes Art & Architecture Library at Stanford, which has a bunch of imitation Saarinen womb chairs and is spectacularly sunny:
https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/st...
Other library nostalgia sparked by reading this:
1. Listening to recordings of J.L. Austin in a soundproof room in the British Library (p.57)
2. Reading about Wittgenstein on rule-following in the Library of Congress, with my notes constantly sliding down the glass-topped desks and crazy people walking around and around the circular reading room (not pictured)
3. Requesting old crumbling 1930 Street & Smith's hard boiled detective magazines that Wittgenstein liked to read (see Monk's The Duty of Genius, p.423) in the Radcliffe Camera (p.61)
4. Cramming for philosophy exams under the disgusting yellow lights of the PPE reading room in the Bodleian (not pictured)
5. Looking at all the B&W pictures of the great dead 20c philosophers in the old philosophy sub-faculty library on Merton Street (not pictured)
6. Oxford college libraries: Merton, Brasenose, Mansfield (not pictured) and faculty libraries: The overwhelming moldy smell of the Politics Library, checking out Terry Eagleton books from the modern English and Law faculty library
7. Reading Austin’s Philosophical Papers in the New York Public Library’s reading room to escape the summer heat, thinking about the scene in The Day After Tomorrow when the reading room floods then freezes (p.19)
8. Reading right-wing cold war publications about (fanciful) Soviet military superiority in the low-ceilinged attic stacks at Fresno State in the mid-1980s (not pictured)
9. Years and years and years reading and making photocopies and paying big fines in University of Chicago’s Regenstein library, which James Redfield, in Nature and Culture in the Iliad calls "a machine for learning", and the brand new Mansueto reading room, which opened the year I finished:
http://images.adsttc.com/media/images...
10. Reading the paper in a red armchair as a guest in the London Library (p.47)
December 10, 2019
Libraries are defined by their mission to promote access to information. This collection is interesting principally for the visual spectacle, but it also asks a question. Are the grand archways celebrating the idea of information making information inaccessible? Beauty makes those who feel at home in beautiful spaces seek out information but they are often the ones who need information least. Do those ladders on rollers ever roll? Are the tables with little green lamps filled? What does access look like when an architectural celebration of access disinclines the visitor toward practical access in reality?
These aren’t my decisions to make, but they’re the questions prompted in me. Still, Hofer provides alternatives: small spaces where the library and seminar blend together. Or ones where technology provides the access that a ladder and ancient bookcase may not. But in comparison these rows of keyboards seem so banal that they disincline one toward access too.
Libraries struggle perpetually with the balance between beauty and practicality to promote information accessibility. This survey of great, mostly European libraries shows that it’s a balance that is as hard to achieve now as it ever was.
But either way, the book is quite a ride for anyone who gets an extra pep in their step at the mention of the word “library.”
These aren’t my decisions to make, but they’re the questions prompted in me. Still, Hofer provides alternatives: small spaces where the library and seminar blend together. Or ones where technology provides the access that a ladder and ancient bookcase may not. But in comparison these rows of keyboards seem so banal that they disincline one toward access too.
Libraries struggle perpetually with the balance between beauty and practicality to promote information accessibility. This survey of great, mostly European libraries shows that it’s a balance that is as hard to achieve now as it ever was.
But either way, the book is quite a ride for anyone who gets an extra pep in their step at the mention of the word “library.”
July 16, 2019
Libraries are vanishing spaces. With the advent of the electronic book, readers can now enjoy delectable works of culinary literature like "The physiology of taste" by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin or read a mammoth work like Leo Tolstoy's 1300 odd page "War and Peace" on a liquid crystal screen. As Umberto Eco says in his 'On Literature', a collection of essays about the functions of literature in society : "A clear gain for their minds but at a terrible cost to their eyesight".
"Libraries" by Candida Hofer is a gorgeous collection of photos of some of the famous libraries from around the world. With most photos taken without any people in the library (possibly a metaphor for the diminishing number of readers), it represents a serene environment where the bibliophile can imagine himself/herself to be in.
The collection starts with a short essay on libraries by Umberto Eco but it's overshadowed by all the gorgeous pictures. Definitely one for the bibliophile's coffee table collection. My favorite picture so far is the picture of the "Real Gabinete Portugues Da Leitura" at Rio De Janeiro
As a civilization,we can only hope that these "temples of learning" (as they are referred to) will still exist for generations to come
"Libraries" by Candida Hofer is a gorgeous collection of photos of some of the famous libraries from around the world. With most photos taken without any people in the library (possibly a metaphor for the diminishing number of readers), it represents a serene environment where the bibliophile can imagine himself/herself to be in.
The collection starts with a short essay on libraries by Umberto Eco but it's overshadowed by all the gorgeous pictures. Definitely one for the bibliophile's coffee table collection. My favorite picture so far is the picture of the "Real Gabinete Portugues Da Leitura" at Rio De Janeiro
As a civilization,we can only hope that these "temples of learning" (as they are referred to) will still exist for generations to come
March 11, 2019
This coffee table book begins with an essay by Umberto Eco, who clearly loves hanging around a good library. He describes an ideal library as a place "devoted to leisure time, where you can...take a stroll in the garden...[or] go to look at the statuary..." Statuary, you say? A garden? In a classicall library, yes. Hofer's photos can be placed in two categories: modern libraries, which to me seem sterile to the point of being oppressive and shout "Get your information here!"; and classical libraries, which inspire as much awe as the great cathedrals. These classical libraries have statuary, magnificent murals, and beautiful architecture, and they all whisper, "Here you can gain knowledge, if you wish to find it." This book is for library lovers.
Read
December 12, 2019"Libraries" is a typical coffee table book, featuring photos of historical libraries, most of which are located in Europe. Although some photos reveal the majesty of architecture, most do not, even though they're passable. Likewise, a wider selection of libraries from around the world, and not just ones located in Europe, would've presented an interesting mental exercise in comparing and contrasting the different ways cultures utilize academic space. Eco's essay in the beginning was unneeded, as it was rambling, and somehow got on a weird tangent about the downfalls of photocopying pages out of a book. Overall, you won't look at this book more than once, although that one view will be pleasing.
May 20, 2022
Umberto Eco's opening essay, even though it was from 1981, still rings very true today! I especially loved the part about going to a library shelf with a particular book title to find, only to serendipitously stumble upon even better books on the shelves nearby - as that was exactly how I stumbled upon this book in my library yesterday!
Condida Hofer's photographs were lovely also. You can almost smell that musty dusty old book scent just looking at the pictures. It really showed that no matter where in the world you are (or, at least, Europe and the Americas) libraries generally look much the same <3 Loved all the old architecture, the random busts, the artwork and murals, the cozy reading areas...definitely makes you want to go to your nearest library and curl up with a good book!
Condida Hofer's photographs were lovely also. You can almost smell that musty dusty old book scent just looking at the pictures. It really showed that no matter where in the world you are (or, at least, Europe and the Americas) libraries generally look much the same <3 Loved all the old architecture, the random busts, the artwork and murals, the cozy reading areas...definitely makes you want to go to your nearest library and curl up with a good book!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 73 reviews