June 19, 2002
Back to the BNF
Back to the BNF
     |
| The Fortress of Connaissance. 18 Juin. |
A French architect friend mentioned that he didn't find the BNF (Bibliotheque National de France--like the Library of Congress) to be a successful project. It was a fortress, isolated from the city around it and therefore from the people.
On my first visit, reported exclusivly on these very pages last week, I couldn't have agreed more. The bloody thing was closed on a Monday (as if it were a museum) and completely iced down. A huge esplanade framed by four glass monoliths--completely transparent yet utterly mysterious about their contents; you can only see through them, not into them.
You can click on the pictures over at the right. The first big one will be the cover of my next album or first existentialist manifesto. At 5pm, at a time when the library was absolutely bustling with activity deep inside from whence I was emerging, this was the scene on the surface level. Utterly empty, huge spaces, punctuated by the occasional and tiny human figure. In this case, it was a guard (see "Manpower" below).
Look at the choice of materials: this huge space is constructed of this bleached, gray wood. Set into immense, unbroken strips that join with the towers and run straight upward.
The wide, low steps that border the entire campus put the pedestrian at the outside of a wall of metal rectangles and cubes of bushes. The metal/plant alternation along the border of the perimeter is broken only by very narrow channels through with a person can enter. They are all identical narrow channels; there's no wide main entrance anywhere. The plant boxes are more like cages, with gridded fences holding in the closely trimmed bushes inside.
Outside it's all exclusion, isolation, fortification.
Then inside, just look at the two snaps below. Huge glass corridors with ceilings high above. At the upper level, about a dozen cellular study rooms, each devoted to a different discipline. Each room completely isolated from the others, even from light from the outside. All the interior light of the studies is provided by numerous warm halogen bulbs set all around the rooms. It reflects off of the extremely rich, red woods chosen for the floors and the bookshelves. The futuristic glass-and-steel frames of the exterior become ultra-luxurious carpet, wood, fire, leather, and paper on the inside.
There are stacks of books in the reading rooms, but apparently a vast collection is stored in the four towers and mechanically extracted on request by researchers.
The interior spaces really are incredible, easily the most sumptuously furnished library I've been in. And that's just the upper level, for which I paid my annual admission ticket to use. At the lower level, you need to file a special application. One can peek, across the central forest of the library, down through the glass into the lower level. There, the ceilings are three stories high all around. I wonder what they have at this most privileged heart of knowledge!
The architect is Dominique Perrault.
Posted by amol at June 19, 2002 12:40 PM