Schoelcher Library
Fort-de-France, Martinique
N 14° 36.286 W 061° 04.079
Short Description:
The Schoelcher Library is located at the corner of the Rue de la Liberté and Rue Victor Sévère, in Fort-de-France, Martinique.
Long Description:
The Schoelcher Library is a public library in Fort-de-France, Martinique. It was designed by Pierre-Henri Picq and originally constructed for the Universal Exposition of 1889 held in Paris to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution.
The building was constructed between 1886 and 1887 in the Tuileries Garden in Paris, near the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. It was presented at the World Fair in Paris in 1889. It held the extensive collection of books of abolitionist Victor Schœlcher who was a Member of the National Assembly of Martinique and Guadeloupe from 1848 to 1850, the main representative of the abolitionist movement in France. Reference: Web Link
After the Exposition is was dismantled and shipped to Fort-de-France, Martinique where is was reassembled. It is named after the French abolitionist Victor Schoelcher.
Reference: Web Link
"The Exhibition included a building by the Paris architect Pierre-Henri Picq. This was an elaborate iron and glass structure decorated with ceramic tiles in a Byzantine-Egyptian-Romanesque style. After the Exposition the building was shipped to Fort de France and reassembled there, the work being completed by 1893. Known as the Schoelcher Library, initially it contained the 10,000 books that Victor Schoelcher had donated to the island. Today it houses over 250,000 books and an ethnographic museum, and stands as a tribute to the man it is named after who led the movement to abolish slavery in Martinique."
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