The Renovated Folger Shakespeare Library is a D.C. Showpiece

metroweekly.com:

First Folio. That seminal 1623 publication, the first book to print a collection of Shakespeare’s plays, many of them for the first time, also factors into the new exhibition.

While only 235 copies of the First Folio are known to still exist — out of an estimated original run of 750 — a whopping 82 of those are part of the Folger’s permanent collection, having been originally acquired by collectors Henry Clay Folger and Emily Jordan Folger.“That really formed the centerpiece of their collection,” Prickman says of the married couple who founded the namesake institution in Washington nearly a century ago. “This is the first time we’ve been able to share it all at once with anybody who visits.”Home to what is regarded as the world’s largest Shakespeare collection, ranging from books and manuscripts to art and artifacts, the Folger has been sharing its First Folio Gallery in full since late June, when the independent organization re-opened to the public after a major renovation and expansion that took over four years to complete at a cost of $80.5 million.An imposing neoclassical edifice on Capitol Hill, a block away from the U.S.

Capitol, the Folger, at least historically, has been somewhat easy to mistake for one of the many large and imposing white marble government institutions all around it, including the Supreme Court and Library of Congress.That’s less likely to happen now, though, thanks to the massive renovation, which included extensive cleaning and repair of the building’s white marble exterior, restoring it to near-pristine condition.

The Folger’s exterior has been further enhanced by virtue of fully accessible gardens adjacent to what are now the building’s two main entrances on its east and west sides.