Looking up into the second-floor loggia from just outside, one can see ceiling mosaics based on Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man" soliloquy from "as you like it".
A building design competition was held in 1910. From a selection of twenty contenders, the Library Commission selected Cass Gilbert, the foremost architect of his time and the designer of the much-admired St. Louis Public Library. Construction began in 2015 and the library opened on March 29, 1921.