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Category: John Adams Building

Silver stylized owl with radiant circles around its head, surrounded by a gold frame

Pic of the Week: Under Construction

Posted by: Ellen Terrell

Labor Day weekend starts in a few hours so I thought I would feature a photograph of the Adams Building (then known as the Library of Congress Annex) while it was under construction. Funds for the construction of the building were appropriated in 1930, with an additional appropriation in 1935.  It was mentioned in in …

Silver stylized owl with radiant circles around its head, surrounded by a gold frame

Pic of the Week: Sunburst Grille

Posted by: Jennifer Harbster

  The title of our blog post this week is “Sun Spots this Summer?” so we are highlighting one of the architectural grilles that resembles  a sunburst design. These grilles typically disguise the Adams Building’s ventilation system and are visible throughout the building. This one is a bit hard to spot (no pun intended!), since it …

Figure of Brahma on bronze door, John Adams Building, Library of Congress.

Pic of the Week: Brahma

Posted by: Jennifer Harbster

In honor of Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month our Pic of the Week features Lee Lawrie’s sculptural relief of the Hindu God Brahma on the bronze doors of the John Adams Building. When we first launched Inside Adams, Donna Scanlon wrote about Our Bronze Doors, which symbolize the history of written word. During my college years, I …

Silver stylized owl with radiant circles around its head, surrounded by a gold frame

Pic of the Week: A Great Seal

Posted by: Ellen Terrell

Today’s Pic of the Week features a version of the Great Seal of the United States as a floor medallion in the entrance lobby of the Adams Building.  It has been slightly modified, but has the requisite 13 stars, olive branches with 13 leaves and 13 olives, and a bald eagle.

Silver stylized owl with radiant circles around its head, surrounded by a gold frame

Pic of Week: Then and Now

Posted by: Jennifer Harbster

This week we are featuring two photographs of the public entrance to the Science and Business Reading Room taken over thirty years apart. I found the Science Reading Room image (left), as I was browsing through an old pamphlet box of historical material about the Library. We believe it was taken sometime in the late …