![]() To accommodate the library's ever-expanding collection, four further additions were added to the bookstack wing between 19. This proved necessary the library's holdings grew from 649,924 volumes in 1926 to one million volumes in 1935. The library was purposely built away from the center of campus, a break from traditional campus planning, to allow the building to expand. A bookstack wing abutted the library on its west side. Upon its completion in 1929, the building had a "figure 8" shape with two enclosed courtyards. The site was previously occupied by tennis courts and the Women's Field. Ĭonstruction on the Main Library began in 1924. Platt's plan for the campus adopted the Georgian Revival architectural style, which was popular at the time. Platt to revise the master plan and design new construction. In 1923, the University of Illinois hired landscape architect Charles A. During the economic prosperity that Illinois experienced in the Roaring Twenties, the state legislature committed to funding a major building campaign at the university. White imagined a new southern quad anchored by a new library on its western edge. A plan drawn in 1919 by university professor James M. James envisioned a library to rival those at "the great German academic institutions." īy 1909, the university was already considering expanding the campus to the area south of the Main Quad. James announced an ambitious plan to expand the collection to one million volumes and to build a new library building. However, the new building quickly became inadequate for the needs of the quickly-growing student population. The library moved from its previous space in University Hall to the newly-completely completed Library Hall (later renamed Altgeld Hall) in 1897. By 1880, the library housed 12,500 volumes, and by the turn of the century, the collection had grown to 70,000 volumes. In 1868, the University of Illinois's first president, John Milton Gregory, personally acquired 644 volumes to establish the library. ![]() The library was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 11, 2000. The Main Library is the symbolic face of the University Library, which has the second largest university library collection in the United States. The building houses several area libraries, as well as the University Archives and the Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Platt designed the Georgian Revival building, one of several on the campus which he designed in the style. Built in 1924, the library was the third built for the school it replaced Altgeld Hall, which had become too small for the university's collections. The Main Library is a historic library on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Urbana, Illinois. University of Illinois Buildings designed by Charles A. ![]()
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