Landmark
Sterling Memorial Library at Yale
A university library where Lawrie’s sculpture becomes part of the institution’s daily intellectual life.
Archive article
The Decoration of Sterling Memorial Library
Yale University · New Haven, Connecticut
The High Street entrance to Sterling Memorial Library is a meditation on civilizations preserved through the written record. Lee Lawrie prepared the sketch model, and René P. Chambellan interpreted it in the full-scale sculpture.
A medieval scholar divides the doorway. The left-hand programme evokes earlier civilizations through Egypt, a Phoenician ship and the winged bull of Babylon; its panels and scribes carry Cro-Magnon, Egyptian, Assyrian and Hebrew inscriptions.
The right-hand programme turns to early European and American civilizations, marked by the Mayan serpent, Athenian owl and Roman wolf. Its panels carry Arabic, Greek, Chinese and Mayan inscriptions.
The entrance court also bears two concise statements of purpose: “A library is a summons to scholarship” and “The library is the heart of the university.”
Yale University · New Haven, Connecticut
Sterling Memorial Library maquette
