Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Building

The Thomas Jefferson Building is the oldest of the three Library of Congress buildings in Washington, D.C., opened in 1897 after eleven years of construction. The Beaux-Arts structure of granite and white marble was the largest, costliest and safest library building in the world at completion. Architects John L. Smithmeyer and Paul J. Pelz won the competition with an Italian-Renaissance-inspired design. More than fifty American artists and sculptors decorated the building with mosaics, murals and statuary; the Main Reading Room culminates in a 49-meter dome bearing the allegory 'Human Understanding'. Today a tunnel links the Jefferson Building to the Capitol; visitors enter the marble Great Hall with its stained-glass ceiling free of charge, view the reading room from a gallery, and can see an original Gutenberg Bible on display.