Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building

The Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, D.C. opened in 1897 as the first freestanding home of the Library of Congress, designed in an exuberant Beaux-Arts style by the architects John L. Smithmeyer and Paul J. Pelz and finished under the supervision of Edward Pearce Casey after years of dispute over cost and design. Its Great Hall and domed Main Reading Room are lavishly decorated with murals, mosaics and sculpture by dozens of American artists working under one coordinated iconographic program celebrating human learning and civilization. It was renamed in 1980 to honor Thomas Jefferson, whose personal library, sold to Congress in 1815 to replace the collection burned by British troops in 1814, formed the core of the library's rebuilt collection. The building is widely regarded as one of the most richly decorated interiors of any public building constructed in the United States.