Početkom rujna Birmingham je dobio novu knjižnicu koja se gradila gotovo četiri pune godine. Djelo nizozemske arhitektice Francine Houben oduševilo je stanovnike Birminghama, ali i turiste diljem svijeta koji dolaze vidjeti ovaj savršeni spoj arhitekture, urbanog planiranja i krajobrazne arhitekture.

Dutch studio Mecanoo has completed Europe’s largest public library in Birmingham, England, with a sunken amphitheatre, rooftop gardens and a shimmering facade clad with interlocking metal rings. Sandwiched between a 1930s building and a 1960s theatre, the new Library of Birmingham fronts one of three piazzas that comprises Centenary Square. The building is made up of a stack of four rectangular volumes, which are staggered to create various canopies and terraces.

Mecanoo designed the exterior of the building to reference the city’s jewellery quarter, adding a filigree pattern of metal rings over golden, silver and glass facades. Inside, these rings cast patterns of shadows onto the floors of the reading rooms in the middle levels of the building. “I didn’t want to make a brick building, because we needed a lot of light, but I didn’t want to make a glass building either,” architect Francine Houben told Dezeen. “It’s so beautiful to sit inside because of the reflections and the shadows, and the changing of the weather. It’s different from December to June.”

A gently sloping floor allows the building to negotiate the level change from the front to the back of the site, but also leads visitors down to the fiction area at the back, then down to the children’s library and music section at the base of the building.
“We needed many ground floors,” said Houben, “so we introduced a ground floor, a mezzanine, a mid-lower ground floor and a mid-mid-lower ground floor in the form of gently descending terraces.” The lowest level extends out beneath Centenary Square, where the architects have created a sunken circular courtyard that functions as an informal amphitheatre.

The three main reading-room floors branch out from a staggered rotunda at the centre of the building, integrating rows of bookshelves and clusters of study spaces. There are also benches and stools lining the perimeter, offering views down the square below.
Archives and research spaces occupy the levels above, while an oval space at the top of the structure houses the Shakespeare Memorial Room – dedicated to the library’s extensive collection of works by English playwright William Shakespeare. Dating back to 1882, the room has been relocated twice from former library buildings.

Plant-filled terraces cover two of the rooftops, creating spaces for visitors to read and study outside.

Referring to the library as a “public palace”, Houben told Dezeen how she sees the building as an important landmark for the city community. “I think libraries at this moment are the most important public buildings, like cathedrals were many years ago,” she said.

Francine Houben founded Mecanoo in 1984 and the studio’s best-known designs include the Maritime and Beachcombers Museum and the TU Delft Library, both in the Netherlands. Mecanoo was also recently shortlisted to design the World Expo 2017 exhibition in Astana, Kazakhstan.

 

Photography is by Christian Richters.
Izvor: DEZEEN, 4/10/2013