Old Library

The building in the center of Berlin, where the Royal Library (formerly the State Library) was previously located. The baroque building was erected in 1775-1780 designed by Austrian architect Josef Emanuel Fischer von Erlach by Prussian architect Georg Christian Unger. Since 1914, the Faculty of Law of the Humboldt University has been housed in the Old Library.nThe Old Library was built by order of Frederick the Great. Thanks to the Old Library, literature became accessible to the bourgeoisie. Until now, an inscription in Latin “nutrimentum spiritus” – “food for the soul” – is on the building’s portal.nWith its appearance, the Old Library resembles the Mikhailovsky Corps of the Vienna Hofburg: Frederick the Great ordered Unger to copy the Vienna project.nFor more than two hundred years, the Old Library has been carrying the nickname “chest of drawers” ​​among Berliners. During World War II, the building was seriously damaged and was restored.