PRAGUE NATIONAL LIBRARY

About This Project

National Library is supposed to represent public identity of the young country. Best visual imprinting of the Czech identity, is the city capital with its monuments that witness history. Following this philosophy, the building core is located on the upper part, where is placed a panoramic entrance facing the town.A real public square 85 m wide, 22 m above the street level, offers a 360° view on the city. From this modern “forum” that is the large foyer of the Library, begins the descent path through the reading rooms, archives and services. Building envelope is a glazing skin, completely transparent at the upper floor, and gradually screenprinted below with dense texts from Czech literature, in order to express outside the key role of the Library in the cultural preservation. Composition by an upper public part, light and transparent, (urban and meeting space) with the heavy and closed storage part (knowledge space), is embedded in the same parallelepidedal volume that reveals the solid perception to the ground.