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.
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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;
  1. City Library Parking Garage, Kansas, Missouri, USA
  2. School Gymnasium Building, Tyumen, Russia
  3. Transformer Sub-Station, St. Petersburg, Russia
  4. The Municipal Library, Lyon, France
  5. Parking Garage, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA
  6. Circle City Books, Pittsboro, NC, USA
  7. Eborn Books, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
  8. Loganberry Books, Shaker Heights, Cleveland, OH, USA
  9. The Bookcase, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
  10. Duluth Main Public Library, MN, USA
  11. Collège du Sacré-Cœur de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
  12. Electrical Sub-Station, Miramar, New Zealand
  13. Lauréat-Vallière library, Saint-Romuald, Levis, Quebec, Canada
  14. Café Oliveirense, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxemburg
  15. Utrecht, The Netherlands
  16. Office Van Grafhorst Notarissen, Utrecht, The Netherlands
  17. "Sky High", Boulogne-sur-Mer, France
  18. "Empty Bookcase", Walthamstow, Greater London, UK
  19. Poor Richard's Bookstore, Colorado Springs, CO, USA
  20. Dr. Phil Stevens Medical Office, Toganoxie, Kansas, USA
  21. Livingston County Library, Chillicothe, MO, USA
  22. Rolling Hills Library, Savannah, Missouri, USA
  23. Pioneer Bookstore, Provo, Utah, USA
  24. Row of Bookshelves, Municipal Public Library, Ustroń, Poland
  25. Chelyabinsk, Russia
  26. Cafe Intelligent, Belaya Tserkov, Kiev, Ukraine
  27. Tsentralʹna Central Library, Chernivtsi, Ukraine
  28. Public Library, Ashdown, Arkansas, USA
  29. Taiwan Printing Discovery Centre, Dali, Taichung, Taiwan
  30. Painted Silos, Incheon South Korea
  31. Public Library, Vougy, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, France
  32. Lanusei, Sardinia, Italy
  33. Bukowski's, Kingswell Ave. Los Feliz, Los Angeles, USA
  34. BookBar, Denver, Colorado, USA
  35. Brattle Book Shop, Chicago, USA
  36. Kaohsiung City, Taiwan
  37. Central City Library V. Kina, Borisoglebsk, Voronezh, Russia
  38. Museum of Orlovtsy Writers and Ivan Turgenev Museum, Oryol, Russia
  39. "Mélia’s Journey" by Mantra, Helsingborg, Sweden
  40. Traffic Control Box, Dublin, Ireland
  41. "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.

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
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


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.
Image from Flickr is by 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)


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

Permission by Jan Is De Man to use image from his Facebook page is thankfully acknowledged.

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.


Image Source: Google Maps' Photos

Location of building in Google Street View. The mural is not yet visible in Street View.


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

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".

Location in Google Street View


Mural at Cafe Intelligent, Belaya Tserkov, Kiev, Ukraine
Near Luxwen Petro Station, 69th kilometre of the route Kiev-Odessa M05.

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


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.

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;

Book store during off hours with bookshelves covered by covers painted like books;
Image from Google Maps' Photos is by Tre Retter

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


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.

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


"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.)
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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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