Library Buildings around the World

Al Kuwari, Minister, Culture, Arts and Heritage, Prince Andrew, Duke of York and several other distinguished guests.
The launch of Qatar National Library coincides with the 50th anniversary of ‘Dar Al Kutub’, first national library in the
Gulf Region, which opened in Doha in 1962. As a founding partner of the World Digital Library, QNL will provide
innovative facilities for exploring interaction between technology and people to promote new ways of learning.
Besides housing 1.2 million books, the Qatar National Library will operate ‘Qatar Reference Service’ and provide access to
over 60 online databases and websites and will have over 300 public computers, wifi and multi-media production studios. It
will partner with British Library to digitise 500, 000 records relating to Qatar. As an ‘eHub’ the library will make millions
of electronic books and documents accessible at the touch of a fingertip, and it will not even be necessary to visit the library
in person, as the archive will be accessible remotely through a mobile phone or other handheld device.
“Libraries in the modern world are not as they used to be in the past. Reader is not there only to get knowledge but also to
interact. In today’s world a library has to be vital, active and cater everyone’s needs in the society,” said Sheikha Moza to a
panel which discussed on ‘In the age of Ipads, Do we need Libraries?’
She was joined by Baroness Blackstone, Chairperson, British Library, Professor Hassan Al Alsereihy, President, Arab
Federation for Libraries and Information Person and Dr Claudia Lux, Project Director, Qatar National Library at the panel
with Ghida Fakhry Khane, News and Programme presenter, at the Al Jazeera as the moderator. “We are proud to
announce the development of a project of globally unique scope and breadth in its field to bridge the gap between past and
future and enable a true modern renaissance of Arab culture, education and scientific discovery,” said Lux.
“The Qatar National Library of tomorrow will be created to be a place between home and work. A strong digital library and
a virtual reference desk are key services the Qatar National Library will provide before the new building officially opens,”
she further said.
In addition to providing access to the significant digital heritage collection about Qatar, Qatar National Library will also
introduce the Gulf and Arab Science online portal, which is being developed in co-operation with prestigious international
partners. The platform will be launched using digitised material from the British Library’s Indian Office Archive, as well as
its famous oriental manuscripts.
(http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/news/214896-qatar-national-library-to-open-in-2014.html)
Bibliothèque Municipales à Vocation Régionale (BMVR), Caen – France Competition 2010 on
design
Partner:Rem Koolhaas. Associate in charge: Clément Blanchet
12 700 m2 (SHON)
The Bibliothèque Multimédia à Vocation Régionale (BMVR) is located at the tip of the peninsula, a focal point of the new
development in Caen. The library is designed with two intersecting pedagogic axes which encourage maximum interface
between disciplines : human sciences, science and technology, literature, and the arts. With its four protruding planes, the
building points to four landmark points in Caen (the Abbaye-aux-Dames in the north, the central train station to the south,
the Abbaye-aux-Hommes in the east and the area of new construction in the west), and becomes a symbolic centre for the
city. The library consists of two intersecting reading rooms, which encourage maximum interface between the programmed
disciplines: human sciences, science and technology, literature, and the arts. In the exterior spaces created by these
intersecting reading rooms, the library interacts with its surroundings, opening up to a park, pedestrian pathway and
waterfront plaza. The design of the future BMVR Caen meets the Haute Qualité Environnementale, a standard for
sustainable building in France. The sustainable approach responds to local climactic conditions to ensure energy efficiency.
Shallow floor plans maximise available natural light, creating the ideal reading environment crucial to a library. (OMA)
Chu Hai College, Library, Hong Kong – China on construction (2013)
Program: 28,000m2 of educational facilities including library, classrooms, offices, studios, cafeteria, lecture theatres, gym,
staff accommodation.
Three imperatives drive the concept for Chu Hai College's new campus: a compressed time frame of two years for
completion, the natural beauty of the site – a verdant hill overlooking Castle Peak Bay in Hong Kong’s New Territories –
and Chu Hai's venerable history (starting in 1947) of multidisciplinary education. The campus consists of education facilities
for three faculties (with 10 departments) and two research centres over a gross floor area of 28,000m2. Seventy-five percent
of this space is concentrated in two parallel horizontal slabs, which are each eight stories high. The slabs are conceived with
speed and ease of construction in mind: all structural elements are on the exterior, liberating the floor plane for ultimate
flexibility. The slabs are connected by a ‘mat’ of stairs and platforms that criss-cross between the buildings, acting as a
circulation space for the campus and following the natural slope of the site towards the sea. Campus life is concentrated on
the mat, which facilitates encounters between staff and students from different departments and offers views of the sea, the
surrounding hills, and also, thanks to the aerated facades of the slabs, into the inner life of the college itself. Beneath the mat,
the ‘plinth’ runs between the two slabs, beginning at ground level and rising to the fourth floor. It is a multi-level network of
intricate spaces – in contrast to the simplicity of the slabs – including a cluster of four lecture theatres, a cafeteria, gym, and,
the core of the college, the library. (OMA)
Cornell University, AAP College of Architectur, Art and Planning (Paul Milstein Hall),
Ithaca, NY – USA on design (groundbreaking 2009) – 2011
Occupying four distinct buildings at the northern periphery of Cornell's Arts Quad, the College for Architecture, Art and
Planning (AAP) is currently a fragmented area, dislocated from the energy of university life. The new Milstein Hall – a
14,000m2 complex containing much-needed studio, exhibition and crit space, an auditorium and a new Fine Arts Library – is
conceived not as a symbolic, isolated addition to the campus but as a connecting structure: a large elevated horizontal plate
that links the second levels of Sibley and Rand Halls and cantilevers over University Avenue, reaching towards the Foundry
building. Where a car park once stood between Sibley and Rand, a contiguous, multi-layer system of buildings and plazas
will unite the disparate elements of the AAP, creating a vibrant public space adjacent to the campus’s most beautiful feature,
just to the north – the Fall Creek Gorge. The four existing buildings of the AAP – Rand, Sibley, the Foundry and Tjaden
Hall – exhibit varying architectural styles but share a single typology: linear, corridor-based buildings that segregate the
AAP’s disciplines in closed rooms behind a labyrinth of entrances, security codes and dead ends. Milstein Hall provides a
type of space currently absent from the campus: a wide-open expanse that stimulates the interaction of programs, and allows
flexibility over time. Within Milstein Hall's upper plate, which has access to Rand and Sibley, areas are defined not by walls
but by subtle manipulations of the section that trigger particular uses: a sunken area for the library, raised areas for crit
spaces, and open spaces for studios – all suffused with light from floor-to-ceiling windows and a grid of skylights. The roof of
the upper plate, visible from the third floor of Sibley, Rand and Baker Lab, is an open platform with views of the gorge and
the surrounding campus, and is gridded with vegetation that becomes denser in the direction of the gorge. Milstein Hall is
intended as a building with hidden depths: the floor of the upper plate is punctured by the bulging ceiling of the lower plate,
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