French National Library

13th Arrondissement
Paris, France

Contributed by Project for Public Spaces

This library is at best a carefully constructed void, and at worst a notoriously expensive project that "designs out" not only people, but books.

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Why It Doesn't Work

Set apart from the metropolitan community to "seed" a new neighborhood in the eastern section of Paris, the library is set upon a vast platform with a sunken garden consisting of four glass towers constructed to resemble the open book. The failure of this austere, modernist structure can be attributed to a lack of accessibility, a grand and imposing non-human scale as well as a complete absence of activities. The plaza and gardens are silent, and remain devoid of the public they were built to serve.

The towers contain more than one design flaw. For example, it was realized too late that a library built from transparent glass would provide little protection for the books from sunlight; and that in fact, excessive sunlight would actually overheat the towers (and pose a risk of turning them into blazing infernos!). In addition, the glass design failed to account for condensation, another threat to delicate books. These issues were remedied by the architect only after the construction had been started, and at additional expense to the French public.

Outside, the unfriendly and inaccessible nature of the design provides no direct link among the four towers, and so traveling from one end of the library to another is an endless trek. There is also deficiency in directional signage. The signage that exists subscribes to strict minimalist standards (a mute gray-upon-gray scheme), and is often placed in hidden locations. Therefore, help for visitors trying to find entrances, restrooms, or the way to the street or metro is scarce.

There are also problems with the library's services, which include the latest technologies and four super computers - but undertrained staff. Because of this, the public soon found retrieving and requesting books to be all but impossible. So many requests are lost that the library staff went on strike, seeking time to find the lost requests, and to receive additional training for the computers system.

History & Background

Commissioned by Francois Mitterand during the final stretch of his political career, the library was conceived as "one of, if not the biggest and most modern library in the world." He chose Architect Dominique Perrault's design to be a grand monument. The library would eventually cost the French people $1.3 billion dollars, and an undue amount of trouble.

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French National Library homepage

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11/25/02 Joseph Luk said:: Public spaces are designed with the public in mind, no questions about that. However, the public is not a homogenous group. Perhaps, a narrow group of the public appreciates the French National Library's austerity. I visited the library two years ago. The entire complex was empty and like you said "devoid of activties". The sky was blue reflecting off the crystal clear glass panels. As I walked into the space where the four towers seem to contain--the feeling was surreal. The French National Library wasn't working as a public space, but it was the perfect place for me to reflect. If the library was the only place I could find a moment of solitude and peace in the highly congested but lively city of Paris, then I think it did its job. BNF is not a public space like the Pompidou, where young and old, men or women, rich or poor come and gather to celebrate the diversity of the humanity. The BNF is a place for people who seek solitude, isolation, and ultimately knowledge. The place is symbolic of our struggle to reach paradise-the Garden of Eden. The closed off sunken garden is the paradise, isolated and protected by a fortress-the four towers of knowledge. We can only look onto its isolation and imagine what it would be like to be there. It is like looking into our future, in isolation and in uncertainty. Please boarden your horizon and appreaciate the meaning architecture has to people.
After that visit, I found my path. I am now studying at University of Toronto, Canada in second year architecture.
Joseph Luk, 21.
08/05/03 Lizbeth Gonzalez said:: The French National Library or as the French like to call it, "la TGB" for "la Tres Grande Biblioteque," at first appearance does emit a sense of rejection to the visitor. With its four repetitive corner towers framing a large and fairly empty raised platform, the national library can make you feel unwelcome. But, having lived in Paris as an architecture student for a year, and having visited the library at various occasions, has allowed me to see a more fantastic side to this work of architecture. It is a modern utopia. A utopia representative of the crossroads of human kind and nature. In essence, the library is respectful homage to nature, done so by the delicate protected forest placed in the sunken hole at the center of the building. It is a utopia for the future generations, built to catalyze the prospective emergence of the new Latin Quarter on the 13 arrondissment. It is in the greatness of this structure that makes coming to the library a grand journey, and that is fantastic. It is the monumental and simplistic towers that frame a beautifully African wood planked platform that fascinates me the most. Perhaps it provides an escape and a relief from the very ornate and eccentric French facades. Whatever the reason, it is in the arrival to this beautiful utopia that makes the library a wonderful work of architecture. Perhaps for the passerby or the tourist the library may seem harsh, but for the individual in search of knowledge, the experience is serene. Once inside this structure you get a sense of why it was designed the way it was designed. The four towers, representative of four open books, house the many delicate and historic volumes of books. Through the means of electrical shoots, books are transported up and down the towers and brought to you. The delicate protected forest in the center of the building represents the origin or books, trees. And in essence this forest represents the giving back to nature, and the return to the untamed and savage forest untouched by humankind. The long and beautiful corridors along the face of the forest provide a sense of a long procession, something the French are quite fond off, and I have become as well. In general, it is in the function of the elements of the library that I find the greatest beauty, and this can only be perceived by becoming not a seer but an experiencer of the building’s function. And remember, "you can't judge a book from its cover, at least not one you must experience first hand."
10/28/03 Manish Gupta said:: As I see it, it is the long standing form versus function controversy. A form so beautiful and sacred that somewhere in the design process,the form took over and the function was almost quite forgotten.
04/27/04 Etienne Stettler said:: My wife and I came upon this structure after seeing a dj on one of the nearby boats. It was about 2am, and we were both struck with a sense of complete emptiness as we climbed the stairs from the road to that god awful space. It almost ruined our good mood. To now find out that the building isn't even practical (for the users and the books), makes me wonder where they found these "brilliant" architects. Shame!
01/04/06 Marc Naimark said:: Dominique Perrault, the architect of the boondoggle, can be accorded some leeway. Typical of French projects, this was a competition without a program for a building without a purpose without any consideration of operating costs. Rather than dealing with the real issues at hand (lack of good research libraries, of adequate university libraries, of space in the old national library, of large public libraries, etc.) with innovative solutions (for example by digitalizing the most-used books), the megalomaniac Mitterand decided to simply build a new library in Paris. Decisions on capacity and use of the building were made and modified again and again, most of them after the architectural competition. In a weak competition (with Stirling's entry perhaps the only really viable solution), Perrault won thanks to his appeal to Mitterand's taste for the obvious: how not to appreciate four towers like open books? Wasn't that groovy?
05/09/06 Nick Roche said:: All of the above critiques of the National Library bring home one point, the controversy of Paris, which is part of what makes Paris Paris. Remember what they said about the Eiffel Tower, the Grande Arch, the glass pyramids, not to mention the Pompidou Centre? Paris invites controversy, hence discussion, followed by the exercise of the mind. What other city can we say that about? Look at the sterile gray of New York and Chicago resembling a bed of nails, or the cancerous sprawl of Los Angeles or most American cities for that matter. Around the world, city after city has forsaken its identity for tall and uniformity. To paraphrase the lines of a famous American poet, Paris took the path least traveled by and that has made all the difference. The library is simply a continuation of traveling down that path. The day she stops creating controversy, Paris will simply blend and fade into the horizon and one of her greatest identities will be lost. When that day comes (and hopefully never will), quelle domage !!
09/30/07 Joshua Llaneza said:: It's a remarkable place, and I agree that it's a wonderful place for solitude. But with that said, you can also have solitude in even the most busiest places. As a public institution, it should invite also the public, not just the few that wants to "get away."
05/27/08 Richard McDonough said:: This is an abominable space in every way. Beside the end to culturally valuable and visually interesting nearby buildings, removed in the hope of profits in the private sector, this mad space puts nature in cages. Materially, its deterioration was almost instant, both on the public plaza and in the badly planned and signed interior. If one wanted to build a confusing and user unfriendly essential services building this should be everybody's model.