1850 – Ste-Genevieve Library, Paris

Designed in 1839, and opened in 1851, the library was intended to contain the treasures of a nearby cloister. Like the Old Library in Trinity College Dublin, the library has a two-story reading room on the upper level over a lower level entrance. The reading room has cast iron columns and ornamental trusses supporting a decorative painted vaulted ceiling. It was here that the general uprising of 1968 started with a student protest.