This is 99% invisible.

I'm Roman Mars.

On the University of Pennsylvania campus,

there's this gorgeous old library,

which is the School of Design's Library

of Fine Arts and Architecture.

It was designed by architect Frank Furnace.

It looks like a red brick and terracotta Palace.

Producer Avery Truffelman.

It's got these leaded glass windows and this very elaborate roof articulated with lots of pointy

ornaments and a two-story rotunda reading room.

According to its website, it is a seminal library design that

expresses function while merging the imagery of a cathedral and railroad station.

It could be the set for any number of scenes in Harry Potter.

It's a national historic landmark. It was completed in 1890.

Now you may know the furnace library at Penn, it's a wonderful 19th century building.

This is Denise Scott Brown who studied urban planning at Penn and then taught there.

And at my first faculty meeting they were considering whether the architecture school should

support the plan to demolish the furnace library.

This was in 1960 when architects were very into tearing down old buildings.

No one would dream of touching it now, but then I was a rebel in saying that,

and there was a big debate, and the dean was on the other side. He wanted it demolished.

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