Madison library – 1

Free to all! That's what the doorway still says.

This actually isn’t a library anymore. But it used to be one, and it still proclaims as such over the doorway!

Getting built in 1899!

Built in 1899 by a couple of Madison’s leading benefactors, the “Romanesque-Gothic” [ed: or Richardsonian Romanesque; see comment below] building was a library until 1969, when everything moved a few blocks to the library’s current home. Nowadays, the inside has been renovated (to its original glory, I’m sure), and it serves as the Museum of Early Trades and Crafts.

 

Reference:
Cunningham, John T. (1998). Images of America: Madison. Arcadia Publishing: Dover, NH.

5 Responses to “Madison library – 1”

  1. More Richardsonian Romanesque if you ask me. RR was the most popular style of architecture for civic structures in the 1880s and 1890s, although by the mid 1890s it’s popularity for civic use was waning in favor of Beaux Arts or Neoclassical.

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