Madison Building Entrance

And the Library’s James Madison Memorial Building is big. Really big. With some 2.1 million gross square feet, the Madison is the world’s largest library structure. Along with the Pentagon and the FBI building, it’s one of the three largest public buildings in the Washington, D.C., area.

The Madison’s main entrance is suitably imposing, framed by a colonnade of 24 towering piers that, as the Architect of the Capitol notes, attempts to “capture the spirit of classical architecture while remaining faithful to the canons of modern innovation.”

Just behind the colonnade and above the doors, a colossal bronze tribute to reading and learning greets arriving visitors.

“Falling Books,” a sculpture by Frank Eliscu, is what is sounds like: Ninety-eight giant, open books tumbling from the heavens to the folks below, their faces craned upward to see. Like the building it decorates, “Falling Books” is big: The sculpture measures 50 feet high and 35 feet wide. Some of the books are as much as 5 feet wide.

Don’t, however, try to find your favorite novel among them: These books contain no text. Instead, they’re inscribed with starbursts and cosmic swirls — “a cascade of books, our sublime heritage, falling from the heavens to be captured in the eager minds of man,” as Eliscu described it. (As imposing as “Falling Books” is, Eliscu is best known for another, smaller work: the Heisman Trophy, the stiff-arming statuette awarded each season to college football’s most outstanding player.)

In times of intemperate weather, the long space framed by “Falling Books” and the colonnade provides employees and visitors a nice perk. It makes a good shelter from a chilly fall rain and a shady respite from the sweltering summer heat — and a nice spot to watch passersby come and go from the U.S. Capitol and the world’s greatest library.