Presentation brochure_ Public Library in Craiova City

Biblioteca Publica in orasul Craiova | A Public Library in Craiova

500.000 volumes

How to preserve the knowledge of a city?

The project for a public library in Craiova learns from the city of Zenobia utopycally built by Italy Calvino, where its consumeristic population burries the city in its own history and from Trator, a library from Isaac Asimov, ment to preserve the knowledge of the humanity and occupies a whole planet.

The geometrical core

The hystorical core

S

Craiova

The only spare site for the new library in the central core of the city fabric is a parcel of 11.600m.

1910 heritage CentralAn Area building sits on site along parasitary addions dating from 1948 (the fournance), 1970 (ruins of an extended industrial parc) and 1995 office buildings. The heritage building is to be protected and upcycled and the fournace is to be kept as a statement of a changing point in history: a central garden which used to gather an encouter of personal worlds turns into an industrial parc.

Amplasament Site

11.600 sqm

11.600 sqm

Monument Heritage building

1948

191

0

Demolări Demolitions

1995 Dem.

1970 2012

191

0

Demolări Demolitions

1995 Dem.

1970 2012

An 1910 heritage building sits on site along parasitary addions dating from 1948 (the furnace), 1970 (ruins of an extended industrial parc) and 1995 office buildings. The heritage building is to be protected and upcycled and the furnace is to be kept as a statement of a changing point in history: a central garden which used to gather an encouter of personal worlds turns into an industrial parc.

Oulinying the inner limits of the sorrouding blocks, the site seems to be a consistent limit. Its structure is recovered in a virtual collage where the parcels found in 1860-2013 maps are put together with the agressive interventions done after 1948 by the comunists. This juxtaposition of limits uncovers an area of limit transition that adjusts the formal buildable area.

Limita The limit

The site is a limit.

Reconstituire limite Limit restoration

Outlining the inner limits of the sorrouding blocks, the site seems to be a consistent limit.

Reconstituire limite Limit restoration

ion 1948

block un

truck

Edificabil Buildable area

road

1948

+

=

Limite În tranziție The structure of the limit is recovered in a virtual collage. The parcels found in Limits in transition 1860-2013 maps are put together with the agressive interventions done after 1948 by the comunists.

Limite În tranziție Limits in transition

=

This juxtaposition of limits uncovers an area of limit transition that adjusts the formal buildable area.

1906

2014

Gradina The garden

Pietonal The walkway

The new plan places pavilionar volumes along a central garden. In 1906 an encounter of private gardens occupied the center of the block.

which pops up into the garden in the coffeeshop area and the bussiness part of the building. The brick platforms conceptually engrave the platforms of the old parcels.

Construcții pavilionare Pavilion buildings

Gradina The garden

The library occupies the central workshop hall and develops thourgh an underground gallery which pops up into the garden in the coffeeshop area and the bussiness part of the building.

The 1948 truck path cut in the block becomes a pedestrian walkway.

The brick platforms conceptually engrave the platforms of the old parcels.

Pietonal The walkway Pietonal The walkway

Amprenta de cărămidă Brick platforms Amprenta de cărămidă Brick platforms

The tower

The main body of the library

The

un

aller

nd g

rou derg

y

The demolished 1970 halls,the left out metal workshop and the furnace keep traces of giant metal leftovers. The interraction between the old workshop and the new library will be set up thourgh metal structures that cross the main hall, the furnace and continue with an underground gallery.

The structure which occupies the main workshop hall develops following the succcesive positions that an existing metal bridge used to occupy in the room. The old bridge used to carry masive metal pieces. The new structure will carry books.

The main library hall occupies the old metal workshop room.

The entrace guides you towards the underground gallery or the main library hall.

The Tower

The tower becomes the main entrace apparatus of the library, but also a binoculars to visually connect with the city. The 1948 furnace tower will be occupied by a metal structure that follows the traces of existing metal leftovers.

Topografie Topography

0

Pivnița The cellar

+5m

The houses on this block sit on elder cellars dating from 1830. The cellars are connected into a continuous gallery. The proposed cellar uses the ascendent topography of the site.

In 1948 the small metal workshop hall, called Brataseanu, turns into an industrial parc. A ‘urban dialysis’ is applied to the morphology and typomorphology of the area.

Brataseanu workshop Parasitary structures (1995)

Furnace(1948)

Additions (1984)

work hall (1960) demolished 2013-2014

work hall (1960) demolished in 2010

2008 view

An utopical view over the site. In the temporal interval 1910- 2014, this area has never been complet and went through frequent randical changes

How to preserve the knowledge of a city?

Paul Virilio claims in the book ‘The University of Disaster’ that ‘cultural accidents’ are the most irreversible. On the other hand, the accident leads to evolution. The initial site for the present project was a whole city: Craiova.

Similar to Zenobia city from Italo Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities’ the citizens of Craiova burry the city in its own history at a high pace. Attracted by new, the recent cultural acts completely detach from the past. The old is completely covered or erased.

An architecture object with a higher connotation than its denotation, the library, has the capacity to preserve culture. The contemporary library is due to link past and present to future upgrading its function to a form of a community center.

In Isaac Asimov’s novel, The Foundation, the library occupies a whole planet and is due to preserve the knowledge of the entire humanity. This utopian view of the library is practically researched at the local level of Craiova, where the present public library occupies a memorial house and extends to 200sqm. The space is not sufficient.

The future Public Library is placed at the historical and mathematical center of the city, in an area outlined by the local urban zoning regulation. In contrast to the dense morphology of the zone, the site is a generous hole on the map, depicting traces of recent massive demolitions. The project for the public library intends to tell a non-linear history of the site. As a conclusion of a morphological and typomorphological study of this destructured site, the building has to repair limits and create open scenarios in order to preserve the site’s capacity of evolution. If accidents produced evolution in this place, the new intervention aims only to create opened scenarios.

A heritage building occupies the site. This monument is part of a network of industrial workshops built at the turn of the 20th century, around 1910.

Today, a number of such decommissioned “castle hangars” lie in wait, un-

used and forgotten: the Brataseanu Workshops, the Barbu Druga Factory, the Florica perfume factory. The rest, Austrian mills, the “Electrica” Factory, … have been downgraded, disfigured or demolished. Updating the Bratashanu Hall could be the starting point for a strategy of regeneration for these industrial relics. The heritage building will be preserved and up-cycled.

The site of the Bratasanu workshops has always been an example of a “cultural accident”. Right from the start the large building is placed in the middle of a residential area. The beginning of the construction in 1909 determine the demolition of two residential buildings and the deviation of the Vlad Tepes Street. Until 1947 the workshops make parts for agricultural machinery. During communism the factory’s importance in the metallurgic industry grows and with it the workshops expand to become a true industrial park. What used to be the back gardens of a quiet residential area becomes a busy road as a secondary access point to the industrial halls is cut through the center of the urban island. This new development phase in the history of the site is marked by the construction of the furnace in 1948, and by further additional halls built 1960-1970.

At present, all workshops and halls built after 1950, which are no longer in use, are being demolished. The original 1910 structure of the Brataseanu hall is in good state. The concrete frame with brick walling is among the first concrete structures in the city. The lighting and ventilation are solved in an ingenious manner, through natural systems which anticipated an ecological solution.

During the 1990s a series of concrete, brick and light concrete bricks were added onto the original structure. In order to accommodate these additions the side openings have been closed off and part of the lateral brick decoration removed. The design solution proposes the removal of said additions (post 1990) and the preservation of the 1948 furnace as a memory of a turning point in the history of the site- the tabula rasa moment. The facades, once freed from the degree of the additions will be recomposed based on uncovered evidence. The brick decoration can no longer be recovered. The covered windows will be freed and the demolished wall will be filled and marked in a single glass sheet. The look of the building will not be refurbished but framed and the reconciliation with the brutal interventions will be done through metal structures and an underground gallery.

The main workshop space (1910) will accommodate the main body of the library. A metal structure will carry the books. This massive component will occupy the trajectory of an old metal bridge that used to carry huge metal pieces in Brataseanu workshop hall.

The furnace tower (1948) becomes an entrance apparatus but also a binocular mechanism. A second metal structure leads to a panoramic view at the top. The beautiful towers of the old hall and the city are visible from up here.

The underground gallery extends as a continuous cellar following the story of existing old cellars on site, which are covered with more recent buildings than their time of construction (1900) and connect to each other. The gallery pops out in the garden in its main points: the café and the conference room.

The future garden tells the story of a 1900 map, when private green space occupied the center of the block. In 2014 everything is covered is covered in concrete as the garden turned into a busy truck road after 1948.

The truck road turns into a pedestrian path.

The proposed buildings and the brick platform result from collage of 1900-2014 maps, which sketched and overlapped parcels. The site was never complete.

The future proposed plan for the area is due to “repair” the local urban tissue, destabilized by the construction of the industrial park and reconciliate the new facilities with the remainder of the residential area. The connectivity of the area is tested with Space Syntax method, between the level of to the walking distance and the whole city. The place is well connected to the topology of the entire urban tissue, easily accessible from the center of the city and within reach of the public transport network. . This connection is also the oldest in the city. Craiova’s first bus line ran this route: train station - city center - Romanescu Park.

This story remains unfinished. The new project keeps the traces of the phenomena that altered the site and updates the site history. The project preserves the old heritage building giving it at least the same level of importance that it had in the past.

Cum sa protejezi indetitatea unui oras?

Paul Virilio declara in cartea Universitatea dezastrului ca accidentele culturale sunt ireversibile. Pe de alta parte accidentele conduc la evolutie. Situl initial al proiectului a fost un intreg oras, asemuit orasului Zenobia, unul din orașele descrise de Italo Calvino in cartea Orașe invizibile. Locuitorii Zenobiei, atrasi de nou si de consumerism ingroapa orasul in propria istorie.

Obiectul de arhitectura menit simbolic sa proteze indetitati culturale este biblioteca. In romanul science fiction scris de Isaac Asimov, o biblioteca este construita pe o intreaga planeta si are rolul de a conserva cultura omenirii din intreaga galaxie.

Orasul Craiova are o biblioteca publica de 200mp2 intr-o casa rezindentiala. Ea nu poate raspunde nevoilor bibliotecii publice contemporane. O noua biblioteca isi va gasi situl in centrul orasului pentru a completa biblioteca existenta. In biblioteca publica contemporana oamenii invata din carti, dar si de la alti oameni. Rolul noii biblioteca vindeca relatia culturala intre oameni si loc.

Situl indetificat este bine conectat intregului oras si se afla in nucleul matematic si istoric al orasului Craiova. Amplasamentul de 11.800mp2 este o gaura in tesutul istoric densificat prin specula imobiliara. O fosta hala metalurgica de la 1910 se afla pe sit. Proiectul va proteja si recicla hala monument cu scopul de a-I da cel putin valoarea pe care a avut-o initial. Hala este prima cladire din cadre de beton din Craiova, cu umplutura de caramida si rolul acestul spatiu era de a produce piese enorme din metal.

Cubiloul atasat parazitar halei in 1948 marcheaza nationalizarea sitului si extinderea micii industrii intr-un parc industrial. Cubiloul va fi pastrat. Mijlocul insulei era la 1900 o gradina, in 1948 un drum de camioane. Viitorul proiect reface gradina, transforma taietura drumului de camione intr-un pietonal si marcheaza printr-ul pavaj de caramida ampreta fostelor parcele. Atat aparitia halei, cat si parcul industrial reprezinta doua momente de modernitate ce au condus o complete dializa a sitului. Halele parcului industrial au fost demolate in 1995 si in 2013.

Casele de pe insula au fost amplasate la 1900 pe structura unor beciuri de la 1830, cand orasul a ars. Beciurile comunica intre ele.

Proiectul noii biblioteci extinde hala printr-o galerie subterana sustinuta prin structura de beton si armata cu o structura metalica.Traseul coboara printr-o rampa lina din hala in galerie. Ajutat de topografie, volumul iese pavilionar la suprafata gradinii printr-o cafenea si corpul cu birouri conferinte.

Hala devine corpul principal al bibliotecii. O structura metalica independenta ocupa sala halei, inchipuind pozitiile sucesive pe care podul rulant existent le parcurgea pentru a cara piese enorme de metal.

Turnul devine un aparat de intrare si instrument panoramic. Un tub metalic si o scara are rolul de a reconcilia legatura brutala intre hala si turn.

Din varf se vad cosurile halei si intregul oras.

Toate golurile astupate sunt desfacute. Interventiile de dupa 1995 sunt demolate, iar gorile desfacute dupa 1948 sunt acoperite cu sticla fara tamplarie aparenta.

Proiectul spune o poveste non-lineara a locului.