PROJECT NAME // ARCHITECT // LOCATION // DATE //
National Library of France OMA / Rem Koolhaas Paris, France 1989
STUDENT //
Xian Chi
Project Describtion A competition to build a new national library, Très Grande Bibliothèque, was launched in France in 1989. OMA received an honorable mention for this project. The program asked for the creation of various smaller libraries contained in one building envelope; including libraries for moving images, recent acquisitions, reference, catalogues and scientific research. The colossal amount of information to be stored within these spaces (books, films, digital databases) became the driver for the overall concept design. The library is vertualized as a solid block of information, a dense repository for the past, from which voids are carved to produce public spaces – absence floating in memory. These separate elements include: the Pebbles: The Sound and Moving Image Library, the Cross: The Recent Acquisitions Library, the Spiral: The Reference Library, the Shell: The Catalogue Room, the Loop: The Research Library, and Top. The Pebbles are designated spaces for film, tv, music-auditoria & booths-embedded in the podium. The Cross includes two voids that intersect: the reading room is horizontal, the audio and TV spaces form a continuous auditorium that slopes down toward the river. There is an amphitheatre at their intersection. The walls are aligned with transparent viewing booths. The Reference Library is a continuous spiral that connects, in three turns, five floors of partially open storage, carrels, study booths. Each intersection allows for thematic or spatial differentiation. On the exterior appearing like a pebble, the Shell connects the spiral to the loop and provides a panoramic view of Paris, itself catalogue. The Loop is a scientific interior where floor becomes wall, becomes ceiling, becomes wall…Mobius-strip that performs a loop-the-loop in the catacombs of the building. The top part of the building block has a restaurant, a gymnasium, a garden, a swimming pool. All the rest of the floors of the building include various accommodations for storage. Against the entire north face of the building is space for offices, where all the administrative offices, personal services and all kinds of other institutions are accommodated, where necessary in direct connection to the stacks or the major rooms.