Harold Washington Library Center
Take a Tour
Harold Washington Library Center cornerstone at State Street and Congress Parkway
The Harold Washington Library Center opened October 7, 1991. Thomas H. Beeby and his colleagues in the firm Hammond, Beeby and Babka, as a part of the Sebus Group, won a design/build competition for Chicago’s new Central Library in June 1988. This 756,640-square-foot neo-classical building appeared in The Guinness Book of Records as the largest public library building in the world. In 2007, the Harold Washington Library Center ranked 85th in an American Institute of Architects national poll of the public’s favorite pieces of American architecture.