Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library
- Architects
- Ludwig Mies van der Rohe Mecanoo
- Year
- 1972
- Style
- International Style
- City
- Washington, DC
The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library is the central library of the District of Columbia Public Library and the only building Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ever designed in Washington, D.C. It replaced the city's old Carnegie-funded central library at Mount Vernon Square, which a 1961 Booz Allen Hamilton report found inadequate and located in what it called the city's "worst slum," recommending a new downtown library estimated at $12 million. Mies designed a four-story, 400,000-square-foot steel building, completed in 1972 and later renovated by Mecanoo.
the building
Only Mies building in DC. This is the sole building Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed in Washington, D.C., a four-story, 400,000-square-foot steel structure that brought his International Style vocabulary of exposed steel and glass to the city's downtown library system.
Replacing a "slum" library. A 1961 Booz Allen Hamilton study commissioned by the city found the previous Carnegie-donated central library, dedicated in 1903 at Mount Vernon Square, inadequate in size and technology and surrounded by what it bluntly called the city's "worst slum," recommending an estimated $12 million replacement downtown.
the style
Mies van der Rohe designed the library in his International Style, the steel-and-glass idiom he had developed over decades, making this the only place in Washington, D.C. where his architecture can be seen.
More on International Stylethe architect
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed the original 1972 building; it is his only work in Washington, D.C. The firm Mecanoo later carried out a renovation of the library.
significance
The library is a DC Historic Landmark (#L_0675), listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites.
nearby
- McLachlen Building
- Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard
- Patent Office (National Portrait Gallery & National Museum of American Art)
- The Gallup Building
- Washington Loan and Trust Company
- National Union Building