FRENCH NATIONAL LIBRARY

Dedicated to the conservation of books, the four corner towers facing each other delimit the institution’s space and define this hollowed-out area. The creation of the central garden, capturing nature within the artificial, has a strong metaphorical dimension and organizes the layout in the manner of a cloister dedicated to study. Five years of work to build more than 360,000 m², 2,000 workers assigned to the site for three years, a capacity of around 3,500 readers, 20 million books available: the figures give an idea of the scale of the program. Nevertheless, the project steers clear of ostentatious monumentality and architecture instrumentalized by power, focusing instead on the interiority of the building: reading rooms isolated from outside noise, and an interior garden that can only be discovered once inside the building. A minimalist repository of knowledge accumulated over the ages, the BNF skillfully plays with scale to lead visitors from the city to the heart of the book.