Picture of the Day, Vienna

Prunksaal (State Hall) Vienna, Austria -- October, 2011

During a European library conference in Vienna (the second conference I've ever been to in my life, and also, coincidentally, the second conference I attended in two weeks!), we were given the opportunity to take a tour of the beautiful State Hall. Housed in the Austrian National Library, the State Hall is part of the old imperial library. The statue is of Emperor Charles VI, who ordered the hall built in the 1720s (that's his statue there in the middle). There are about 200,000 old books in the library, and people are even allowed to check them out, which is pretty cool. We had a tour guide, who enthusiastically explained about the history of the hall, as well as the many layers of symbolism in the way the hall was constructed and in the paintings. She may have been a little too enthusiastic, because she just kept going and going and going......still, it was mostly interesting :p