The Library of the History of Human Imagination

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The Walker Library of the History of Human Imagination is a private library and collection of artistic, scientific, and historical artefacts. The Library was founded and is owned by Jay Walker. [1]

Contents

The 3,600-square-foot facility is a wing of Walker’s home in Ridgefield, Connecticut. It contains about 30,000 books as well as maps, charts, artworks, and a wide variety of museum-level artefacts. It is not open to the public. [2]

Architecture and Art

The Library was constructed in 2002 to house and showcase a collection of books and artefacts that Walker had been assembling for two decades. [3]

Designed by architect Mark P. Finlay [4] and owner Jay S. Walker, the room combines traditional architecture with floating platforms, multiple stairways, and a glass bridge. [2] The bridge connects the entryway at the middle of three levels. Sound and lighting were designed by artist Clyde Lynds with architectural lighting design by Lana L. Lenar. [5] A series of approximately 3x4 etched glass panels are used as part of the railings around the stairs and platforms. Each of the nearly 200 etched plates depicts a seminal invention in human history in symbolic form.

Contents

Items on display at the Walker Library include an original 1957 Russian Sputnik, the world’s first space satellite (one of several backups built by the USSR), and the U.S. response, a Vanguard satellite made from surviving parts of the American satellite that exploded on the launch pad. [2]

One of two known anastatic facsimiles of the original 1776 U.S. Declaration of Independence, made directly from the original using a wet-copy process. [2]

The Harmonia Macrocosmica by Andreaus Cellarius. This 1660 atlas included the first published heliocentric depiction of the solar system. [2]

"The Flayed Angel", was published in Paris by the anatomist and artist Jacques Gautier d'Agoty in 1745. This is a three-foot-high, colour portrait of a nude, seated woman, viewed from the back with her face turned in a three-quarter profile. Her back is slit open up the spine, and her skin and muscles are peeled aside on both left and right to reveal the ribs and spine beneath.

A White House cocktail napkin, circa March, 1942, upon which President Franklin D. Roosevelt briefly outlined his three-point strategy for winning World War II in his own handwriting. The president jotted down his thoughts on the napkin during a Rose Garden meeting with U.S. Army Air Corps General Hap Arnold, who took the napkin back to the Pentagon where it remained classified for many years.

Additional artifacts in the Library include: [6] [2]

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References

  1. "Walker Library of The History of Human Imagination". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 2022-11-02.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Levy, Steven (22 September 2008). "Browse the Artifacts of Geek History in Jay Walker's Library". Wired Magazine. Retrieved 30 May 2013.
  3. Jay, Walker. "How did the Library of Human Imagination Begin". Discovery.com.
  4. Finlay, Mark. "Mark P. Finlay, Architects" . Retrieved 31 May 2013.
  5. Lynds, Clyde. "The Library". ClydeLynds.com. Retrieved 31 May 2013.
  6. "The Library of the History of Human Imagination". TEDMED. Retrieved 31 May 2013.