Books have always been the bearers of wisdom, of messages. Texts thousands of years old have been preserved in their pages. In modern times they are changing their form, but their mission remains: to pass on across generations the wisdom of those who have the power to breathe life into stories. It's not just about the hundreds of thousands of items in the library catalogue. It's also a challenge to architects to give the library, a tabernacle of wisdom, a luxurious look. This has been done in China, for example, where the library has been transformed into a small microcosm of books.
An eye into the author's soul: the Tianjin Binhai Library in China
The Tianjin Binhai Library is built as a challenge to the future, working with space in a novel way, a futuristic vision. It pushes the boundaries of the library as a building towards the concept of the library as an artistic artefact. Visitors thus find themselves on a "planet" where books reign supreme, floating upwards in elegant storage. The design comes from the Dutch company MVRDV and metaphorically resembles a giant eye with an iris in the middle in the form of a spherical staircase. The library has a total area of 33,700 m² and opened in 2017.
Levitating Books
The interior is dominated by clean, minimalist white: it is unobtrusive, uniform and gives prominence to the content it contains. The shelves often also function as steps or seats. It is not only the luxurious building itself that is monumental, but also the number of volumes, which can hold up to 1,200,000 books. These are not stored in austere, straight shelves, but rather levitate in the airflow, as the undulating curves of the shelves remind us exactly that.
Luxury illusion "floor to ceiling"
Could the architect be an illusionist? Rather, a visionary who knew how to make the most of the space and turn it into a luxurious work of art. Imaginary books are present here, in the form of printed aluminium plates forming the back of the shelves.
Chinese motto "I don't touch real books"
The younger generation has embraced reading books using apps, rather than reading paperbacks or hardbacks. However, that doesn't stop such books from being preserved in a representative space. The medium of transmission is changing, but the writer will continue to write lines for his hungry readers.
Ip-live.cz/gnews.cz-jav
English 
Czech 
Spanish 
French 
Italian 
Russian 
Chinese 
German