Sir Robert Ho Tung Library
Santo Agostinho Square
Constructed before 1894, Sir Robert Ho Tung Library originally belonged to D. Carolina Cunha. The Mansion was later bought by Sir Robert Ho Tung in 1918 to be his villa.
This three-storey Sir Robert Ho Tung Library is located along the St Augustine Square and is right beside the entrance to the St Joseph Seminary.
In 1941, when Hong Kong fell into the hands of the Japanese, Sir Robert moved to Macao and stayed until the war ended in 1945. He passed away in 1955. According to his will, the building was to be presented to the Macao Government to be used as a public library.
The Sir Robert Ho Tung Library was opened in 1958.
This three-storey Sir Robert Ho Tung Library is a typical example of a beautiful mansion equipped with an arcade and a garden.
The intricate steel gate arches of the Sir Robert Ho Tung Library opens to the St Augustine Square and the St Joseph Seminary.
The 3 storey building is a typical Macanese mansion. There are five interconnecting corridors on the ground floor, while the two upper layers are decorated with five arched-windows. It has an arcaded facade decorated with pilasters and ionic columns, highlighted in white stucco against yellow plastered walls, with molding running along the width of the facade. The roof is a dome with four ridges and built in red bricks.
The main entrance is an arcaded wall topped with glazed balusters in velvet blue, contrasting with the yellow tones of the walls.
The Sir Robert Ho Tung Library is one of the 22 cultural sites which constitute the Historic Center of Macao which was inscribed in teh UNESCO Worl Heritage List in 2005.
In 2005, the Macao government renovated and expanded the library spending around MOP20 million. A new 4 storey building was built behind the original mansion covering a total of 30,000 sqm and is concurrently the largest public library in Macao.
The ola mansion displays historical archives and ancient literatures. At the second level the "Ho Sir Literature Archive" provides 16 various categories of ancient literature and books on Chinese history and Catholicism, including the compendium of "Weng Fang Gang's Siku Tiyao (Complete Library of the four Treasures) which constitues a large collection of books on Chinese history.
The new library building offers multi-disciplinary collections in fields including leisure, database, humanity and sociology. There is a children books collection, a language learning center, a music database section, an electornic database section and a video watching section.
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