The project explores the form and figure of a public building within an historic urban context, achieving a close synthesis between the library's users, it's books and the city in which it is located.
The sculpted form of this soaring crystalline tower punctuates the city skyline of Prague, proudly displaying the archive collection of books and presenting the Library itself as a major new public building amongst the other city spires. The architectural idea of the building lies in its materiality and structure, so as to create a coherent urban-scaled building that embraces the mass of books as it's architectural representation, and acts as a symbol of its public function.
Fundamentally, the project is based around resolving the complex programme of spatial relationships between public and private functions and the experience of visiting and working in a library and archive of books, whether as a resident researcher, casual visitor to reference library, member of a party of schoolchildren, or tourist to the city.
Client: The National Library of the Czech Republic
Location: Letna Plan, Prague, Czech Republic
Status: Open International 2 Stage Competition 2007: Second Prize
60,000m2 new public building and external landscaping
Image: Imaging Atelier / Kaori Oshugi
Model: A Models
Model photography: Richard Davies
