Boston Public Library

The Boston Public Library was the first large free municipal library in the United States when it was founded in 1852, and the main building on Copley Square — a Renaissance Revival palazzo designed by Charles Follen McKim in 1895 — is one of the most beautiful public buildings in America. The inscription above the entrance reads 'Free to All,' and the library has lived up to that promise for over 170 years.

The McKim Building's interior is a procession of architectural set pieces. Bates Hall — the main reading room — is a barrel-vaulted cathedral of books, 218 feet long, with arched windows flooding the room with natural light and green-shaded reading lamps on every table. It's one of those spaces that makes you want to sit down and read something serious. The murals throughout the building include John Singer Sargent's 'Triumph of Religion' cycle on the third floor — a 30-year project that Sargent considered his greatest work — and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes' 'Muses of Inspiration' in the stairway.

The courtyard — modelled on a Roman palazzo cortile, with a fountain, arcades, and seasonal plantings — is one of Boston's best-kept secrets, a peaceful outdoor room hidden behind the Boylston Street facade where you can sit with a coffee from the Map Room Café and forget that you're in the middle of a city. The library's 2016 addition by Philip Johnson (now managed as the Johnson Building) provides modern gallery and event space, but the McKim Building is the destination.