Bookshelf Murals Around The World - Updated
This is a a major update to my
earlier post "Bookshelf Murals Around The World" which I had made in April 2015. Besides adding 30 more murals, I have corrected
all the dead links, replaced missing pictures with new pictures etc.
________________________________
This is a collection of buildings which have a realistic mural (Trompe-l'oeil
- French for "deceive the eye") painted on their façade which creates
an optical illusion of large bookshelf with giant sized books. There are many
murals depicting books but
only those murals which illustrate a bookshelf have been included in this
collection.
Social media specially Pinterest is full of pictures of
Bookshelf murals but unfortunately most of these posts are just copy-paste work
without any information about the artist and/or specific location of the murals.
I have endeavoured to find location of each of the mural included here and
wherever possible have also given some information about the mural.
Murals whose locations couldn't be ascertained have not been
included in this collection. The collection will be expanded as and when I find more such bookshelves. My
readers can also help me in finding new ones.
Till date (July 01, 2020) I have found following 41 such mural. These, listed
in random order, are;
- City Library Parking Garage, Kansas, Missouri, USA
- School Gymnasium Building, Tyumen, Russia
- Transformer Sub-Station, St. Petersburg, Russia
- The Municipal Library, Lyon, France
- Parking Garage, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA
- Circle City Books, Pittsboro, NC, USA
- Eborn Books, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
- Loganberry Books, Shaker Heights, Cleveland, OH, USA
- The Bookcase, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Duluth Main Public Library, MN, USA
- Collège du Sacré-Cœur de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
- Electrical Sub-Station, Miramar, New Zealand
- Lauréat-Vallière library, Saint-Romuald, Levis, Quebec, Canada
- Café Oliveirense, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxemburg
- Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Office Van Grafhorst Notarissen, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- "Sky High", Boulogne-sur-Mer, France
- "Empty Bookcase", Walthamstow, Greater London, UK
- Poor Richard's Bookstore, Colorado Springs, CO, USA
- Dr. Phil Stevens Medical Office, Toganoxie, Kansas, USA
- Livingston County Library, Chillicothe, MO, USA
- Rolling Hills Library, Savannah, Missouri, USA
- Pioneer Bookstore, Provo, Utah, USA
- Row of Bookshelves, Municipal Public Library, Ustroń, Poland
- Chelyabinsk, Russia
- Cafe Intelligent, Belaya Tserkov, Kiev, Ukraine
- Tsentralʹna Central Library, Chernivtsi, Ukraine
- Public Library, Ashdown, Arkansas, USA
- Taiwan Printing Discovery Centre, Dali, Taichung, Taiwan
- Painted Silos, Incheon South Korea
- Public Library, Vougy, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France
- Lanusei, Sardinia, Italy
- Bukowski's, Kingswell Ave. Los Feliz, Los Angeles, USA
- BookBar, Denver, Colorado, USA
- Brattle Book Shop, Chicago, USA
- Kaohsiung City, Taiwan
- Central City Library V. Kina, Borisoglebsk, Voronezh, Russia
- Museum of Orlovtsy Writers and Ivan Turgenev Museum, Oryol, Russia
- "Mélia’s Journey" by Mantra, Helsingborg, Sweden
- Traffic Control Box, Dublin, Ireland
- "Inside a Bookshelf" Mural, Örebro, Sweden
Most of these works were created by actually painting with brush/sprays, few
by printing on Vinyl/Mylar and one is made out of ceramic tiles.
Given below are brief details of these murals along with images and location;
City Library Parking Garage, Kansas, Missouri, USA
This is the most famous of the bookshelf building and perhaps the earliest.
The façade is made of signboard Mylar and show cases 22 titles (full
list) on a wide variety of reading interests, suggested by Kansas City
readers and then selected by The Kansas City Public Library Board of Trustees.
The book spines measure approximately 25 feet (7.62 metres) by 9 feet (2.74
metres).
Image from Flickr is by jonathan_moreau
Location in
Google Street View
Source of info:
kclibrary.org
School Gymnasium Building, Tyumen, Russia
A bookshelf painted on the wall of a school building in a school in Tyumen by
the art group ‘Color of the City’.
Brain child of Dmitriy Zyelyenin who along with Syergyey Shapoval, Lyena Koorash, Dima Danilov and Boris
Nyepomnyashshiy created this giant mural. As per painters they had never painted
on such a big canvas (200 square meters - 2150 Sq. ft.) and had never worked on
high scaffolding.
Image from Wikimedia Commons is by Дмитрий Кошелев
Location in Google Maps (Not
available in Google Street View)
Source of info:
adme.ru (In Russian) (English Translation).
Page contains some nice pictures while the mural was being painted.
Transformer Sub-Station, St. Petersburg, Russia
Located in Rossiysky prospect, the local Energy company (TEK) painted the two
walls of a transformer substation into a stack of books. The mural contains some
famous titles like; The Master and Margarita, Three Men in a Boat, as well as
company's own manual for "Emergency and Recovery Operations.
Image from defunct Panoramio (now available in
web.archive.org ) is by Александр Мэджик
Location in Google Street
View
Source of info:
behance.net
The Municipal Library, Lyon, France
The mural at the Municipal Library (La Bibliothèque De La Cité) is
part of the beatification plan of the city. The 400 Sq. metre (4,300 Sq. ft.)
mural on the façade of 4-5 upper floors of the building was created by CitéCréation.
Image from Flickr is by thierry llansades
Location in Google Street
View
Source of info:
francetoday.com
Parking Garage, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA
The mural titled "The Knowledge" was created in 2010 by
Harrell Fletcher with Avalon Kalin. Book titles reflect education and
sustainability efforts and were chosen by a poll of students, faculty and staff.
The mural was made by actually stacking the selected books, photographing the
stack, creating a large vinyl bill board from the photograph and finally pasting
the billboard on the blank wall of the building.
It was selected as one of Americans for the Arts 2010 Outstanding Public
Artworks.
Image from Flickr is by Michael Allen
Location in Google Street
View
Source of info: Official web
Page of artist Harrell Fletcher
Circle City Books, Pittsboro, NC, USA
The mural at Circle City Books was created in
2012. The mural was painted by Bailey Friedman and Emily Kersher. Initially it had forty-eight titles. Later in June 2013 three books (the
horizontal stack ) were added through a local competition. The books include
"The Hope of Liberty" by George Moses Horton, "Light in August" by William
Faulkner, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou, and "Cold Mountain"
by Charles Frazier (full
list).
Permission by Circle City Books to use image from their
Facebook page is thankfully acknowledged.
Image from Flickr is by Andrea Schwartz
Location in Google Street View
Source of info:
articles.latimes.com
Eborn Books, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
A mural painted on the back wall of the Eborn Books (formerly Sam Weller’s
Bookstore). The mural shows the spines of some classic books and
Utah cult favourites.
Image from Flickr is by dodge.rachel
Location in Google Maps (The mural
is on the back wall of the shop and not visible in Google Street View.)
Source
of info:
cityweekly.net
Loganberry Books, Shaker Heights, OH, USA
Mural on the side wall of the Loganberry Books on Larchmere Boulevard, Shaker Heights,
Cleveland. The 22.5 metres (74 ft) long mural was created by local artist Gene
Epstein. Printed on vinyl-coated polyester, the spines displayed include a wide
variety of books. As per the artist, "the criteria we had was that the books
should be 25 percent children's literature, 25 percent related to the Larchmere
community, 25 percent representing the businesses, and 25 percent about
Cleveland." The books were nominated by community members and finally
selected by a committee of residents and shop owners.
Image Source: Google Street View
Source of info:
freshwatercleveland.com
The Bookcase, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
This Mural on the façade of a residential building in the Lootsstraat, Amsterdam
is unique as it is made of coloured ceramic tiles which represent specific
books. The mural which has 250 unique, ceramic books was created in 2006 by
Dutch artist, Sanja Medic in
collaboration with the ceramist P.Kemink (Koloriet, Amsterdam) and graphic designers Melle Hammer and Susanne
Laws.
The mural is
titled
De Batavier (De Boekenkast) (Boekenkast = Bookcase) and the the building
on which it is made is
in a neighbourhood where streets are
named after Dutch poets and writers from the 18th and 19th century, namely C.
Loots (Lootsstraat), van Lennep (Jacob van Lennepstraat), Heije (Jan Pieter
Heijestraat), J. Kinker (Kinkerstraat) and
A.C.W. Staring (Staringstraat). Each book in the mural carries the title of a
poem from one of the above referred poets or a drawing from the famous 18th
century book by Johan Enschede.
Permission by Sanja Medic to use above images from
www.sanjamedic.com
is thankfully acknowledged.
Location in Google Street View
Source of info:
www.sanjamedic.com and
cfileonline.org
Duluth Main Public Library, MN, USA
A bookshelf mural on
the large central pillar of the Duluth Public Library plaza. The 7 metres
(23.5 ft.) tall mural, titled "Books on the Plaza" was painted by
Scott Murphy, a local muralist.
The selection of the books was based on
suggestions from public, library staff and the artist and the main criteria was
to depict range of the library's collections, books with
decorative spines and books of local interest and significance.
Permission by Duluth Library Foundation to use image from their
archived website is thankfully acknowledged.
Location in Google Street View
Collège du Sacré-Cœur de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
Painted on the side wall of Collège du Sacré-Cœur de
Sherbrooke by team M.U.R.R.I.S. (Urban Murals for the Revitalization of
Buildings and Social Reconciliation), the mural titled "Heart, Culture and
Pedagogy" was completed in 2011. The 11.9 metres (39 ft.) wide and 12.8 metres
(42 ft.) tall mural showcases books from more than 100 authors and was created
as a part of beautifying the city and increasing the tourist appeal.
Image from defunct Panoramio (now available in
web.archive.org) is by Mario Hains
Image from
Flickr is by
Petunia_2011
Location in Google Street View
Source of info:
baladodecouverte.com
Electrical Sub-Station, Miramar, New Zealand
Image from
Bliss and the Retiree Blog is by
Lorraine
(Permission to use image awaited)
Location in Google Street View
Lauréat-Vallière library, Saint-Romuald, Levis, Quebec, Canada
The mural depicts the history and cultural life of the region
The Mural which is on two perpendicular walls, covers an area of 120
sq. metre. It was Inaugurated
in the fall of 2002 and was designed and produced by Murale Création.
Location in
Google Street View
Source of info:
The National Capital Commission of Quebec (CCNQ)
Café Oliveirense, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxemburg
Painted on the wall of Café Oliveirense on the Rue de
Luxembourg. Beside bookshelves, the mural also shows an owl on the shoulders of
an avid reader.
Image from
Flickr is by
Ferdinand Feys
Location in
Google Maps
(Photoshere)
Utrecht, Netherlands
An
amazing mural on the side of an apartment building in Utrecht, Netherlands.
Completed in March 2019 it was created by Dutch street artists Jan Is De Man and Deef
Feed and the selection of the displayed books was made on the basis of names of
the favourite books submitted by the local residents.
Permission by Jan Is De Man to use image from janisdeman.com
is thankfully acknowledged.
Larger image courtesy of Jan Is De Man
Location in Google Maps (Not yet visible in
Google Street View)
Source:
janisdeman.com
Office of Van Grafhorst Notarissen, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Here is another bookshelf (second) mural in Utrecht by the
famous Dutch artist Jan Is de Man.
Image courtesy of Jan Is De Man. Click on the image for its larger version.
Located in a narrow alley near the office of Van Grafhorst Notarissen it is not visible in Google Maps but the wall on which it
has been painted can be visualised in
Google Maps (3D).
"Sky High", Boulogne-sur-Mer, France
Another bookshelf mural by the famous Dutch artist Jan Is de
Man is titled "Sky High" and is painted on the wall of a house on Rue du Camp de Droite near the
Saint-Pierre Catholic Church in Boulogne-sur-Mer.
Permission by Jan Is De Man to use image from
janisdeman.com is
thankfully acknowledged.
View larger image and some more images of this mural at
janisdeman.com
Location of building in
Google Street View (The
mural is not yet visible)
"Empty Bookcase", Walthamstow, Greater London,
UK
Yet another bookshelf mural by the famous Dutch artist Jan Is
de Man. In the words of the artist;
"The "empty bookcase" is opposite the library in the Walthamstow district. A neighbourhood where many residents are not very busy. The library is therefore very important to these people. However, the government has decided to close this library. Because of cutbacks .. It is a big setback for the residents and it makes the step to get books (for themselves or for their children) even bigger.Every stack of books in this "empty bookcase" tells a personal story and comes from the residents who in turn were allowed to read these books thanks to the library." Source: Google translation from Instagram @janisdeman
Location of building in
Google Street View (The
mural is not yet visible)
Poor Richard's Bookstore, Colorado Springs, CO, USA
The mural on the wall of Poor Richard's Bookstore was created
by artist Douglas Rouse in Sept. 2015, on the occasion of Banned Books Week and
an interesting fact about the mural is that all the depicted books were
initially banned at the time of their publication.
Permission by Douglas Rouse to use image from rouse66.com
is thankfully acknowledged.
Location in Google Street View
Mural at Dr. Phil Stevens Medical Office, Toganoxie, Kansas,
USA
A bookshelf mural by Kelly Poling, an artist from
Chillicothe, Mo, on the west side of the Dr. Phil Stevens medical office. The
mural shows books depicting people and things related to history of the town.
Dr. Stevens can also be seen in the mural, looking over the shoulder of a girl
who is trying to weigh herself on a scale.
This is first of the three bookshelf murals painted by Kelly Poling.
The second one is at Livingston County Library, Chillicothe, MO and the third is
at Rolling Hills Library, Savannah, Missouri.
Source of information:
tonganoxiemirror.com
Location in
Google Street
View
Livingston County Library, Chillicothe, MO, USA
Located on on the east side of the Strand Apartments
bordering the library parking lot, this is second of the three bookshelf mural by Kelly Poling.
The other two are at Dr. Phil Stevens Medical Office, Toganoxie, Kansas and
Rolling Hills Library, Savannah, Missouri, respectively.
Image from
chillicothecity.org is by Brittany Tutt
(Permission to use image awaited)
Location of building in
Google Street
View. (The mural is not yet visible in Street View.)
Rolling Hills Library, Savannah, Missouri, USA
This is third of the books mural by Kelly Poling. THe first
is located at Dr. Phil Stevens Medical Office, Toganoxie, Kansas and the second
is at The Livingston County Library, Chillicothe, MO.
As per Director of the library the side wall of the library
very plain and people approaching from this side didn't realise the the building
was a library, so they commissioned Kelly Poling to create a bookshelf mural
painted on this wall.
Location of building in Google Street View.
The mural is not yet visible in Street View.
Source:
newspressnow.com
Pioneer Bookstore, Provo, Utah, USA
On the façade of the bookstore in Provo, Utah.
Image from Google Photos is by
Pioneer Book
Location in Google Street View
Row of Bookshelves, Municipal Public Library, Ustroń,
Poland
This huge mural of more than 500 square meters is replica of
the interior of the Long Room of the Old Library at Trinity College, Dublin,
Ireland
Image from Google Maps'
Photos is by
Czesław
Rosa
Below is the view of the actual Trinity College Library.
Image from
Wikimedia Commons is by
Diliff
Location in Google Street
View
Source:
herok.com
Mural at Chelyabinsk, Russia
Located behind the Chelyabinsk Regional Universal Scientific
Library, the little green area is now aptly called "Alley of Literature".
Image from Google Maps'
Photos is by
ice cande
Location in
Google Street
View
Source:
sn.ria.ru (English
Translation)
Mural at Cafe Intelligent, Belaya Tserkov, Kiev, Ukraine
Near Luxwen Petro Station, 69th kilometre of the route
Kiev-Odessa M05.
Image from Google Maps'
Photos is by
Liz
Elizabeth
Location in
Google Street
View
Tsentralʹna Central Library, Chernivtsi, Ukraine
Image from Google Maps'
Photos is by
pr140 pr140
Location in Google Maps
(Not visible Google Street View)
Public Library, Ashdown, Arkansas, USA
Image source:
Pinterest
A full view can be seen in
texarkanagazette.com
Location in Google Maps
(Not visible Google Street View)
Taiwan Printing Discovery Centre, Dali, Taichung, Taiwan
Image from Google Maps'
Photos is by
mnger mnger
A very cute sculpture of a teddy bear reading a book can also be seen at this
location.
Image from Google Maps'
Photos is by
柯小滴
Location in Google Street
View
Painted Silos, Incheon, South Korea
As per
Guinness World Records it is the largest outdoor mural. A joint project of
Industry Promotion Division, Incheon Metropolitan City and Incheon Port
Authority, Korea, the mural was created by painting on Incheon Port Grain
Storage silos and it measures 23,688.7 m² (254,983 ft²). The silos are 48 metres
(about 150 ft) high.
Image from Google Maps'
Photos is by
nh Kim
Location in
Google Street View
Source:
koreatimes.co.kr
Public Library, Vougy, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France
This trompe-l’oeil on the wall of Vougy Public Library (Bibliothèque
Municipale) was created by
Anne Ramseier using mineral paint.
Image from Flickr
is by Mairie de Vougy
Location in
Google Street View
Lanusei, Sardinia, Italy
A mural with a cat on the bottom shelf, reading a book.
Image Source:
Tripadvisor
Location in
Google Street View (Zoom in
to see the cat.)
Bukowski's, Kingswell Ave. Los Feliz, Los Angeles, USA
A mural to honour Charles Bukowski, a German-American poet, novelist, and short
story writer.
A bar aptly named Bukowski’s was also planned in this location (Source:
Eater Los Angeles) and was supposed to be functional in mid 2016 but
currently there is no sign of this bar.
Image Source: Google Street View
BookBar, Denver, CO, USA
A bookshelf mural outside the bookstore.
Image from Google Maps'
Photos is by
Julie R.
Neidlinger
View location in
Google Street View
Brattle Book Shop, Chicago, USA
A mural which is actually bookshelves covers painted like
books. In a way Bookshelves Behind Bookshelf.
Brattle Book Shop is one of America's oldest and largest used book shops.
In addition to three floors of general used books including rare and antique
books, it also has books on sale at the outside empty lot. Most of shelves in
the outside lot are stowed inside for the night, however bookshelves along the
walls of the empty lot are covered during off hours with covers painted like
books.
Book store during working hours with covers of the
bookshelves removed;
Image from Flickr
is by Massachusetts Office
Of Travel & Tourism
Book store during off hours with bookshelves covered by covers painted like
books;
Image from Google Maps'
Photos is by
Tre Retter
Image from Google Maps'
Photos is by
Mainon
Schwartz
Kaohsiung City, Taiwan
A huge mural on a building. It is reportedly the largest wall mural in all of
Taiwan and took the artist more than 2 months to finish.
Image from Google Maps'
Photos is by
Peter Wu
View location in Google Street
View
Source:
theoccasionaltraveller.com
Central City Library V. Kina, Borisoglebsk, Voronezh,
Russia
The mural "Poems on the Wall" was part of the festival "For
the Glory of Boris and Gleb". The open book displays the name of famous Russian
poet Anna Akhmatova
as well as her sketch and a poem by her.
Image from Google Maps'
Photos is by
Невыносимая
Действительность
View location in
Google Street View (GSV of
August 2019 shows picture of some other writer)
Source of info:
borisoglebsk.net
Museum of Orlovtsy Writers and Ivan Turgenev Museum, Oryol,
Russia
The boundary wall between the Museum of Orlovtsy (persons born or
associated with Oryol town) Writers and Ivan Turgenev Museum has a long
bookshelf mural painted for the 200 birth anniversary (2018) celebration of
great Russian novelist, Ivan Turgenev. The mural is about 32 metres long as
measured in Google Maps.
Permission to use image awaited.
View location in
Google Street View
Source:
lesnoyskitalets.livejournal.com
"Mélia’s Journey" by Mantra, Helsingborg, Sweden
Created by the French artist Mantra, the mural, locally called “The Cat”, is
actually titled "Mélia's Journey". Mélia is the cat of famous American
photojournalist Martha Cooper. The art work was made during annual art festival
ArtstreetHbg in 2018 and inspiration for it came from a private photo which the
artist had seen in Martha's home in New York. The books depicted here are the
ones that Martha had on her shelf at that time.
Image from
Flickr is by Maria
Eklind
View location in
Google Street View
Source of info: streetarthbg.se and
e-mail from Peter Eriksson, Streetarthbg, which is thankfully acknowledged.
Traffic Control Box, Dublin, Ireland
Located on Ormond Quay near the Grattan Bridge, Dublin,
Ireland, it is no longer available. The box has been repainted with some other
graffiti. As per Flickr the "Bookcase" mural was by Holly & Cathal.
Image from Flickr
is by William Murphy
Location of box in
Google Street View
"Inside a Bookshelf" Mural, Örebro, Sweden
This mural by Susanna Hesselberg was painted on the wall of
Örebro Concert Hall. It was a part of the Open art exhibition in 2009 and is no
longer existing.
Permission to use image awaited
Credits: I am thankful to Erika Svanström,
Kommunstyrelseordförande (City Council) of Örebro, Sweden who helped me find the
location of this mural and also gave me the details of this mural.
Location of the building in
Google Street View. (Being
temporary installation, it is not visible in Google Street View.)
________________
Credits:
I am thankful to all the artists/organisations who gave me
permission to use images from their websites. Individual acknowledgments are
given under the relevant images.
I am also thankful to my fellow members of Google Earth
Community Forum, namely
Bridgeplayer,
Krenek,
Syzygy and
Willi1. They not
only informed me about several of the murals included here but also helped me in
finding locations of these murals.
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