The Low Memorial Library is the administrative center of Columbia University. Built in 1895 by University President Seth Low in memory of his father, Abiel Abbot Low, and financed with $1 million of Low's own money due to the recalcitrance of university alumni, it is the focal point and most prominent building on the university's Morningside Heights campus. The steps leading to the library's columned facade are a popular meeting place for Columbia students as well as home to Daniel Chester French's sculpture, Alma Mater, a university symbol. Low Library was officially named a New York City landmark in 1967, then a National Historic Landmark twenty years later.
Low actually sits high up on the platform constructed for original campus north of 116th Street (now College Walk), and serves as a major focal point and symbol of the university. It was named after President Seth Low's father, Abiel Abbot Low.
It was the university's main library on the Morningside Heights campus, until the completion of Butler Library, but it is now an administrative building, housing President Bollinger's office, the Committee on Global Thought, the Public Safety office, and the Visitor's Center. Its function is a point of confusion for many visitors to campus, since the inscription on its frieze reads "The Library of Columbia University"
Centered around Low Library, the upper terrace contains two groups of classroom buildings arranged along axial avenues and intimate courts. Added to the plan in 1903, the lower terrace contains dormitory and classroom buildings, athletic fields and Butler Library. The overall plan relates to the city grid while defining a separate institutional enclave. Having initially considered the Gothic Revival style for the campus buildings, the architects ultimately settled on classical and Renaissance models. With rusticated granite bases, these buildings turn their back to the street, forming a fortress-like wall that creates a distinct academic precinct, isolated from the city.
“From all points one is ultimately pulled toward the Low with its great Ionic portico and granite columns sitting on white marble bases...The Low Library served a double function, both as a library and as the ritualistic center of the campus, the holy center of learning. ...Frequently compared to a variety of sources such as the Pantheon, the Library of Congress, and the Rotunda at University of Virginia, the final design of the library was peculiarly McKim’s solution. As a functional library, it never worked very well, controlled by the powerful abstract geometry. The plan is essentially a Greek cross, the void at the center used for the reading room is the dominant element. This is surrounded by a ambulatory, and the other functions of the library, such as specialized reading rooms, catalogue and stacks, are pushed into the wings. The consequence is a procession to the center; the dome and space overpower while directional orientation to the necesseties, such as looking up a book, are afterthoughts. On the exterior, the building has certain features typical of McKim. While details such as the moldings or the antifixae on the cornice of the drum are particularly refined, there is a certain primitivism to McKim’s composition....Only the details are refined, the rest of the building has a powerful, rude strength of classicism being reborn.”
— Richard Guy Wilson. McKim, Mead & White
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