#HTE

The Magnificent Architecture and Design of the Citadel Library on Last Night’s “Game of Thrones”

Last night’s GoT season finale had something for everyone: Schemers, revenge-seekers, fans of political intrigue…and book nerds. Nearly halfway through last night’s extra-long episode, we’re treated to a few fleeting, magnificent shots of what is meant to be the greatest library within that fantasy universe, and it does not disappoint.

For the GoT-non-initiated, a character named Samwell is sent to study at The Citadel in Oldtown order to become a “maester.” (It’s akin to being shipped off to an elite university in order to earn PhD’s in everything from history to medicine to political science.) Once Sam arrives at the city limits, he catches a glimpse of The Citadel:

It is a massive and imposing structure, perhaps even more impressive than The Red Keep at King’s Landing because there are no other tall structures around it.

Architecturally, the style is vague. One of the brilliant achievements of GoT’s set-design team, led by production designer Deborah Riley, is that they successfully apply a mishmash of real-world ancient architectural styles—Roman, Egyptian, Mayan, Moorish, Greek, Germanic, Indian, etc.—without tipping their hand; at least with the computer-generated environments, you’ll see no telltale, entirely Gothic or Romanesque arches, for instance. By carefully avoiding real-world, historical analogs, the designers convince you that this is indeed an alternate universe.

That lack of analog is evident once Sam enters the Citadel library, which is stunning. I was particularly fascinated to see that the designers really did take time to think the space out, from a functional standpoint, while simultaneously incorporating fantastical architectural elements. First off, the first problem with such a massive space, in an electricity-free world, is how to provide light. All of the interior illumination in Game of Thrones’ other massive structure is provided by torch and candle. But in what is essentially that world’s largest tinderbox, filled as it is with paper, open flame is inadvisable. While we do see a few candles in the reception area…

…once Sam enters a book-lined passageway to reach the library proper, he’s given no torch or lantern, and we see there’s not a single sconce along the way:

Entering the main hall, we see that natural light is of course provided via clerestory windows.

Nitpickers among you will note that the chamber is octagonal, with at least one pair of clerestory windows clearly installed within adjoining facets of an octagon, and that this does not jive with the exterior shot of the building.

If you noticed that, you suffer from what I call the Designer’s Curse. I’ve said to friends that being trained in ID unlocked my imagination while grounding me in the practicalities of how things are physically made; this means that, while watching Game of Thrones, I can suspend disbelief for the dragons but cannot get over Samwell’s clearly machine-quilted jacket.

In any case, back to the lighting. In order to distribute light around the space, the designers have created something that’s part-Alexander-Caldwell, part-Edwin-Hubble: A massive mobile consisting of enormous lenses, designed to magnify and reflect incoming sunlight around the chamber.

One of these beams fortuitously illuminates Sam.

Something else that tickled me was when we catch a glimpse of the furniture and its attendant details. Even in a fantasy world, they cannot get 24-inch wide boards. Here you can see the reading surface of the carrels consists of two boards joined edge-grain-to-edge-grain.

The support structure of the bench appears to be joined with a cross-lap.

And we see that the space is cavernous, absolutely loaded with stories (pun intended.)

All of those levels require some means of ascending—or multiple means. I love the sheer architectural chaos of the space: It looks like several generations of architects and contractors were hired and fired at various stages of the construction. One firm was clearly a fan of spiral staircases, where the next opted for conventional stairs. One contractor clearly had ties to a stone distributor, while another insisted on working with natural wood.

All in all the space is meant to awe, and for me at least it was completely successful. To those of us who grew up loving books, if walking into a space such as this, how could we not have this expression on our faces?