This is not a sci-fi movie set, it is a library… though it very well could be a sci-fi locale, and I’m all here for it!

Funky and cool.  The Vennesla Library and Culture House by Helen & Hard

Last week was such a gem… but Labrouste was not finished!  Nearly two decades later a second reading room was finished, this time for the National Library of France and it is equally stunning.  Moving from the double barrel vault of the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, this reading room switches to a series of vaults, elegantly supported by a grove of his signature thin steel columns.

There’s a lot of lovely play going on here.  The columns and arches that define the perimeter of the room are massive and weighty, contrasting with those delicate columns and the filagree-enhanced arches that flare from each column to support the vaults.  But look closer – notice that the vaults don’t actually rest against those heavy outer bits.  Rather, there’s an independent column placed in front of each that heightens the soaring of the vaults overhead.  So much about the vaults is in contrast with the walls that support the stacks, yet they still marry together perfectly.

Such a beauty all over.  Great stuff.

La Salle Labrouste at the Bibliothèque Nationale by Henri Labrouste.

This is such a gem.  From 1851.  Kinda surprising, for it looks decidedly modern.  Indeed was in many ways, for it was one of the first buildings to use steel in such a monumental way, not only to create these massive open bays of space (and thus monumental structure) but also in such strikingly decorative ways (and thus monumental in decoration).

Beyond even that though, what must have been the most stunning for those visiting it in the 1850s  was the slenderness of the steel columns.  Used to the large and heavy stone or wood structure of contemporary buildings, the lightness and slenderness of these columns must have been wonderous to behold, mixed with perhaps no small amount of trepidation.  Could something that thin support so much roof?

This building was also somewhat of a first in that it was a public building that paid more attention to its inside than its outside.  That said, the outside is a classic creation with a decidedly unclassical twist:  the inside is reflected on the façade (ie, the function informed the form).  Check out the representation of the book stacks from within, complete with author’s names.

Definitively a momentous architectural work and still a wonder to this day.

Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève by Henri Labrouste.

An amazing set of photos by Xavier de Jauréguiberry of the amazing Phillips Exeter Academy Library.  This one is a classic, an amazing combination of geometry, proportions, materials, and light to create this remarkable spatial experience.  I also love how understated it is from the outside – striking in its own way for sure, with its intriguing with its heavy load-bearing brick construction and classical regularity that gives the impression of a stacked series of arcades (almost coliseum like?), which is further enhanced by the actual arcade at its base and that open-air bit at the top. But within this smooth exterior is the explosion of space at its centre, with circles meeting squares, with concrete meeting wood, and with light diffused into an ephemeral glow via a heavy structural frame.  And the ancillary spaces are done with equal care and precision.  Exquisite work.

The Phillips Exeter Academy Library by Louis Kahn.