Carnegie Library — Rebuilding a City With American Money
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Transcript
First World War shelling and fire devastated large parts of Reims. Reconstruction after 1918 was not simply a matter of repairing famous monuments; the city needed libraries, schools, housing and public services.
The Carnegie Library belongs to that second Reims. It was financed through the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and opened in the late 1920s with a distinctive Art Deco interior.
Its importance is therefore civic rather than royal. Reims’ recovery involved foreign philanthropy, modern architecture and new public institutions. The city visitors see today is partly a product of the 1920s, not merely a patched medieval town.