State Library of New South Wales

The State Library of New South Wales features a grand sandstone facade topped with a copper dome that has weathered to a pale green. It functions as the oldest library in Australia, growing from a humble subscription collection in eighteen twenty-six into a massive repository of colonial history. Inside the vestibule, visitors pass beneath the bronze statue of Matthew Flinders, the explorer who first mapped the continent, with his faithful cat Trim perched permanently at his feet near the entrance.