Centennial Festival Celebrates 100 Years at Los Angeles Central Library

Los Angeles Central Library. Creator: rawpixel.com on Creative Commons

Enjoy Free Live Performances, Crafts, Authors, Tours, Time Capsules & More

LOS ANGELES —The Los Angeles Public Library or LAPL invites

Angelenos to a once-in-a-lifetime centennial festival at Central Library on July 11, beginning with a ribbon cutting at 10 a.m. and followed by a variety of activities throughout the historic building in downtown Los Angeles.

The Centennial Festival will offer an array of activities for all ages, throughout Central Library’s multiple meeting spaces and courtyards, as well as in Maguire Gardens, where visitors will find an outdoor stage, more than 20 community booths, and food trucks.

Among the day’s highlights: The Linda Lindas—an L.A. based punk band whose performance at a closed library branch during COVID went viral five years ago—will play in the Mark Taper Auditorium; Susan Orlean, author of The Library Book, will join the city librarian in conversation; and children’s author Dan Santat will discuss his writing and illustrating career. Additional live performances and presentations will include the Bob Baker Marionette Theater; the Grammy Award-winning band Lucy Kalantari & the Jazz Cats; and venerable artist Therman Statum, who designed the Atrium chandeliers.

Other featured activities include Pop-up Poetry with Los Angeles Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace, an artist meet-and-sign with Gajin Fujita, puppet shows, zine making, workshops, children’s crafts, behind-the-scenes tours, author talks, and more.

The Library Foundation of Los Angeles will premiere “Luceros y Penumbras: The World’s Largest Pop-Up Book” in Central Library’s Rotunda. At the heart of the exhibition is a newly commissioned, towering work by Los Angeles–based artist and printmaker Daniel González. An ambitious feat of scale and storytelling, it is designed to surpass the current world record for the largest pop-up book.

On July 7, Angel City Press at Los Angeles Public Library released two new books in conjunction with the centennial—Los Angeles Central Library POPS: Celebrating a Century of the Light of Learning, a 3-D adventure through Central Library’s history, written by Christina Rice and Illustrated by Mirelle Ortega with paper engineering by Matthew Reinhart; and a children’s picture book, L is for Librarian: The ABCs of Los Angeles, written by Susan Lendroth and illustrated by Alexander Vidal.

The Angel City Press booth will feature book sales and author signings. Central Library opened its doors in July 1926 to great public acclaim. Over the span of a century, this architectural treasure has grown and changed to meet the evolving needs of the city of Los Angeles and the communities it serves. Multiple exhibitions on display throughout the building this year, including a pair of time capsules, tell that transformational story.

“Central Library’s Centennial Festival not only celebrates 100 years of serving the city of Los Angeles, but also celebrates the community that has supported the Library for more than a century,” said Mayra Valadez, President of the Board of Library Commissioners.

The Library has put together a year-long slate of programs and activities for Central 100, including online podcasts, traveling displays at branch libraries, a color-by- numbers challenge, commemorative stamps on vintage catalog cards, an oral history project, a limited-edition library card, and even an old-fashioned melodrama to close out the year.

Time: 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., July 11

Cost: Free

Details: https://www.lapl.org

Venue: Central Library, 630 W. Fifth St., downtown Los Angeles