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Chicago's Harold Washington Library: Where Gumbo Was (#59)

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It was easy for guessers to mistake Chicago's central library building, named for the late Mayor, for a rail station or a public market, and to place it in Paris, Barcelona or Belgium. As a post-modernist building, it incorporates bits of the style and manner of all of them and more.

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Gumbo member Jack was the first to put the clues together and suggest it was a library, and MAD Travel Diaries took it further with research and identified which one. Congratulations to both of you!

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The building took years to agree on and plan, but its opening in 1991 allowed Chicagoans to exchange their frustration over the long process for pride in a unique building. The old library was closed in 1977 and became a cultural center; the main part of the collection went into storage, and years of politics and more left the city without a true central library.

1024px-9th_Level_Harold_Washington_Library But the building that eventually went up is handsome, airy and up-to-date. It's completely accessible, At 760,000 square feet, it claims the title as the largest single library building in the country.

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When Harold Washington was elected Mayor in 1983, he got the ball rolling again for the library, including a design competition in 1987. Models of the five finalists are displayed in the building. The winning design, by Hammond, Beeby and Babka, was actually the second choice; the other design, though was too expensive to build. It would have been glassy and modern, and bridged the El tracks to use space across the street as well.

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But the tracks were not ignored in this design, either; the station got a retro makeover whose colors and feel match the building.

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Worth noting: Before the Chicago Fire of 1871, the city had no public libraries. The first one, eventually housed in the building that closed in 1977, was started by a gift of 6000 books donated in England to help out the fire-ravaged city.

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The best part of every trip is realizing that it has upset your expectations

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