ExLibris - New Design for the National Archive/Library in Prague

This diploma-project is divided in two parts a theoretical part and a conceptual design part. Topic of this work is the position and role of libraries in todays technical, digital, shortliving society.
Followed by the question if it’s still necessary to build libraries in a digital (re)production age, how to handle and filter the amount of information nowadays and how it has to be printed or visualized in words and graphics.Next to this the theoretical part is focused on the history and development of libraries, it’s building typologies and the storage of items.
For the design part a competition programm mainly focused on storage and reading facilites was taken as a functional base. As a result of the research done on the building typology and its urban situation it was modified and extended by additional rooms.
The library more than a place to store and preserve knowledge, a public building that has to become public again for everyone, every age. An urban defined multilevel area for different medias with different actvivites and kinds of qualities, adjusted along extern (guidelines, limits,...) and intern (functions, efficiency, light, view...) parameters.
An i n t e r f a c e between built environment and nature between
u s e r and i n f o r m a t i o n.
Main idea was to seperate the functions of national archive(NA) and national library(NL) according to its needs. The northern part because of the less of natural light is occupied by the NA and its sensitive items with special storage conditions. The southern part hosts next to reading-/ study-/ seminarrooms of the NL also the main reading hall, orientated to the city of Prague. This was one reason to hoover the building up to catch this beautiful view and to create a covered urban plaza, a multipurpose public space, an extension of the surrounding landscape.
Therefore an idea of classifying the functions was picked up – f ix e d and c h a n g e a b l e r o o m s. Multifunctionality by keeping the main functions of a room. To guarantee this atriums, exhibtion, media rooms and archives were locted around them and allow an extension of the library by ensuring the main purpose of the rooms.