At the University of Mexico in Mexico City, for example, the mosaics covering the exterior of the library by Juan O'Gorman (1951 53) and the exterior of the stadium by Diego Rivera (1957) are made with natural stone.
One of them has large square windows and a sliced-off corner, and it looks for all the world like the exterior of the library Kahn designed for Phillips Exeter Academy.
The house's rooms proved far more inviting than its exterior, especially the library, a magnificent barrel-vaulted space dominated by an arched lunette (by Francis Eginton) painted in imitation of Raphael's Vatican fresco "The School of Athens".
The UUA group's permanent home was damaged on May 29 after a car plowed through an exterior wall, its library and its worship space.
The library's exterior is an angular composition of folded planes.
Mr. Foster has proposed only minor changes the library's exterior, which is landmarked, and Board 5 and the landmarks panel has approved them.
The arches that line the library's exterior vary in width from 6 feet to nearly 50 feet, giving them an offhand, whimsical quality.
It is meant to resemble an inside-out library: its exterior is incised to simulate rows of identical books on shelves, spines facing inward.
Of his many mosaic works, the most important is on the exterior walls of the library of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (1951 53), which exemplifies the monumentality of which mosaics are capable.
