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dria’s losses.
It is not clear exactly when the
ancient Library of Alexandria was
destroyed. It was probably badly
damaged by fire during Julius Caesar’s
conquest in 48 BC and may
have been destroyed along with the
entire royal quarter. during the campaign
of Aurelius in 272 AD. In 391
AD, the bishop of Alexandria burned
the Serapeum to the ground, which
finally put the institution of the library
to an end.
Thanks to the Great Library, Alexandria
assumed its position as the
intellectual capital of the world and
provided a model for other libraries
to follow.
The Present Bibliotheca
Alexandrina:
The idea of reviving the old library
dates back to 1974, when a committee
set up by Alexandria University
selected a plot of land for its new
library, between the campus and the
seafront, close to where the ancient
library once stood. The notion of
recreating the ancient library was
soon enthusiastically adopted by
other individuals and agencies. One
leading supporter of the project was
former Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak; UNESCO was also quick
to embrace the concept of endowing
the Mediterranean region with
a center of cultural and scientific
excellence. An architectural design
competition, organized by UNESCO
in 1988 to choose a design worthy of
the site and its heritage, was won by
22 www.cancham.org.eg
Snøhetta, a Norwegian architectural
office, from among more than 1,400
entries. At a conference held in 1990
in Aswan, the first pledges of funding
for the project were made: USD $65
million, mostly from the Arab states.
Construction work began in 1995
and, after some USD $220 million
had been spent, the complex was
officially inaugurated on October 16,
2002.
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is
trilingual, containing books in Arabic,
English and French. In 2010, the
library received a generous donation
of 500,000 books from the National
Library of France, Bibliothèque nationale
de France (BnF). The gift
makes the Bibliotheca Alexandrina
the sixth-largest Francophone library
in the world. The BA also is now the
largest depository of French books in
the Arab world, surpassing those of
Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, in addition
to being the main French library
in Africa.
The dimensions of the project are
vast: the library has shelf space for
eight million books, with the main
reading room covering 70,000 m²
on eleven cascading levels. The
complex also houses a conference
center; specialized libraries for maps,
multimedia, the blind and visually
impaired, young people, and for children;
four museums; four art galleries
for temporary exhibitions; 15 permanent
exhibitions; a planetarium; and
a manuscript restoration laboratory.
The library’s architecture is equally
striking. The main reading room
stands beneath a 32-meter-high
glass-paneled roof, tilted out toward
the sea like a sundial, and measuring
some 160 m in diameter. The walls
are of gray Aswan granite, carved
with characters from 120 different
human scripts.
The collections at the Bibliotheca
Alexandrina were donated from all
over the world. The Spanish donated
documents that detailed their period
of Moorish rule. The French also
donated, giving the library documents
dealing with the building of the Suez
Canal.
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina
aims to be:
A center of excellence in the production
and dissemination of knowledge
and to be a place of dialogue,
learning and understanding between
cultures and peoples.
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina
Objectives:
The unique role of the Library of Alexandria,
as that of a great Egyptian
Library with international dimensions,
will focus on four main aspects, that
seek to recapture the spirit of the
original ancient Library of Alexandria.
It aspires to be:
The world’s window on Egypt.
Egypt’s window on the world.
A leading institution of the digital
age.
A center for learning, tolerance,
dialogue and understanding.