Library Buildings around the World

Turkey
Akant Tasarim & Restorasyon Mimarlik, Istanbul – Turkey
http://www.akanttasarim.com
Libraries:
Rami Eyup Istanbul Library, Istanbul – Turkey on design 2008 - 2011
Total Area:78.000 sqm. A new library building is desired to be built in addition to Rami old Miltitary Barracks. Restoration Project
with a new City Museum function.
The Rami Library brings a new perspective to the understanding of librarianship in national cultural community and is also totally
open to international.
Library:
The heart of the library is Ligthcone in the middle which is surrounded by two main reading halls and entrance hall in three
different floors. A strong visual connnection is created by a big gallery gap which also seperates the library part from other functions
in the building. Behind the reading halls 11 floors of bookstock is placed for more than 3 million of books. Beside three main reading
halls, special reading areas and rooms for researchers, academicians are also planned and connected to the bookstock with bridges at
some points.
Foyer-Bridge:
Foyer is thought as a small city square where public can navigate freely and enjoy the space. Foyer is at the height of +11.00 m and
accessible with two different paths/stairs attached to the facade of building. These paths are becoming parts of the landscape which
lead people inside the building. All the entrances of main functions are placed here. Under the Foyer part , Event Area takes place at
+0.50m. Public is the keyword. Building with its surrounding would host as many events as possible which are related or non-related
to the functions inside and bring people together and create a kind of Social Aura around. Event Area is mainly placed at +0.50m
ground level, where the building is lifted up to create an extra volume. A café takes place here and services to this area. This space
also connects the north-east border of the main project site with City Museum.
Auditorium:
Auditorium services to 1000 people. The whole system is designed suitable for theatre plays, concerts as well as conferences. Except
auditorium function, another volume is attached to here which contains management department. Beside these main functions,
underground parking, infrastructure spaces, vertical circulation elements, etc. have been solved coherently to design.
(http://www.archdaily.com/149206)
EEA EmremArolat Architects, Istanbul – Turkey
http://www.emrearolat.com
Libraries:
Raif Dinckok Cultural Centre, Yalova – Turkey 2011
It is possible to say that cities are made out of different contextual layers which time by time come near each other or on top of each
other, even intertwine at times and ground their specific existing states. In the Yalova example peculiar to this city, oppositions
between the main layers stand out.
One face of Yalova is its natural side. The endemic plants, areas where these plants are grown, exhibited and evaluated
commercially, and even the most developed arboretums of the near geography are facts that determine the current existing state of
the city. A colorful, joyful and vibrant world stands out. In this sense, it embodies an optimism, a feeling that the life is more joyous
and trouble-free in this summer place.
Yalova is also an industrial city. Doubtless to say this face of Yalova’s existing state is not as trouble-free. It is hard to say it would be
joyous and vibrant. Instead, the harder parts of life, labor and sweat come out. Compared to the other one, this world is more
challenging.
It would not be wrong to say, without even questioning which face is more veritable, these two existing states that are totally
opposites of each other have intertwined in this city, have fed of each other and even have created the city’s unique soul from the
tension caused by the opposition. The relationship between the building which is a cultural center, the city and the people of the city
is the primary vessel of the design. In this sense, it is aimed that the center mediates with the opposite layers of the city.
The building resigns to the west side of the site and leans to the edge in order to make space for the city garden that will be placed in
front. The perception from the exterior does not give away to the shiny and dominant world of the recent cultural centers that want
to monumentalize. Moreover, it holds off from this colorful, carefree yet imperious world. By doing this the ‘designed’ does not try to
force an order, it does try to teach the ‘user’. Instead, the design is mostly ‘open-ended’.
At first glance, the building does not reference to any shape. This objectivity that the building’s unlike to any shape mass creates,
changes to the industrial character of the city as you get close to the building. Instead of the shiny and ostentations materials, the
foraminous plates made out of resistant construction steel that was designed for facade sheating, was used to strengthen this feeling
with their rusty surface. Citizens would recognize this texture easily as they have seen it in the production areas even though it had
not been used on a building. The building now, has overgrown its new and stranger state ans has started to intertwine with the
citizens. The surface which is also suitable for recycling, acts as a natural palette, containing the changes it will go through like the
color and tone changes caused by oxidation. This movement will make the relationship between the city and the building more
interactive.
The fact that the facade is perforated provide the surface to dissolve at the night time like a tulle curtain and the inner would to be
perceived easily. The user enters the building from its mouth. There is not a door or a barrier. The metal tulle now transforms into a
protector. It leaves the negative impacts of rain, sun and wind but it does not transform into an interior space because of it semitransparent
nature. The air ventilates freely in this area.
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