Construction of the library was financed as a Depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA) project, spearheaded by Oregon senator Frederick Steiwer and took more than two years to complete.

The rich architecture of the building reflects an Art Deco aesthetic with "modernized Lombardy and Greco-Roman" elements as well as many integrated artistic embellishments including "the fifteen stone heads by Edna Dunberg and Louise Utter Pritchard, ornamental memorial gates by O.

"[6] Three major renovations of the library, in 1950, 1966, and 1994, have kept the building up-to-date and it is a daily hub of learning and research to University of Oregon's more than 20,000 students.

[5] In late June 2020 UO officials said the original 1937 portion of Knight Library had been vandalized with paint on the sidewalk and the front door.

[13] The original 1937 section of the library, designed by Lawrence, contains inscriptions along the tops of each of seven large windows on the main (north) facade.

These read, "Philosophia," "Historia," "Religio," "Ars," "Natura," "Societas," and "Litterae," and are meant to represent (in Latin), the seven major disciplines contained in the library's collection.

[15] A pavement on the south of the memorial quadrangle features several inscriptions: "Wonder, not doubt, is the root of knowledge" —Abraham Joshua Heschel "Who asks, finds" —Arabic proverb "Learning without thought is labor lost.