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List of Carnegie libraries in Europe


This is an incomplete list of Carnegie libraries in Europe.

A Carnegie library was built in the 1920s for the University of Leuven to replace a building destroyed in the First World War.

Funding came from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which also built libraries in the war-damaged cities of Rheims and Belgrade. The architect of the Leuven library was Whitney Warren. Although the architect was American, he employed a Flemish style for this commission. His building in turn suffered severe damage in the Second World War, but has been restored. (For more details of this library, see Catholic University of Leuven.)

The Carnegie library of Reims is the single Carnegie library in France. Reims was devastated in the First World War and the losses included library accommodation in the town-hall. The provision of a new library was conceived as a contribution to the city's reconstruction. Reims was one of three "front-line" cities to be given a Carnegie library, the other two being Leuven and Belgrade.

The Art Deco building was finished in 1927, and opened the following year in the presence of Gaston Doumergue, the French President and Myron T. Herrick, the US ambassador. The building was restored at the beginning of the 21st century. The library stock includes some material which survived the World War I.

Carnegie libraries are to be found throughout Ireland. Libraries vary considerably in size, some of the rural ones being very small, but the smallest must be the cabinets used for the Carnegie Library Lighthouse Service.

A full list and description of Carnegie libraries in Ireland can be found in Irish Carnegie Libraries: a Catalogue & Architectural History by Brendan Grimes (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1998). The examples listed below are in the Republic of Ireland.


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