(BDT_17_024) Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

Description

Located at the intersection of the trade routes Via Imperii and Via Regia, Leipzig, first named Lipiz, was bestowed city privileges as early as 1165. Since the Middle Ages, fostered by the founding of the University in 1409, the political events of the Reformation and Luther’s translation of the bible in 1522, Leipzig’s history and image in the world have been intrinsically interwoven with the book publishing and printing industry. Frankfurt, privileged by access to waterways and the close proximity to Mainz, where Gutenberg in 1450 had started the printing revolution, dominated the early book trading business until 1632 when trade restrictions, partially instituted in support of the Counter Reformation, started to render Frankfurt’s book fair increasingly less influential. Through the financial commitment of the Kingdom of Saxony and the initiative of both the German Booksellers Association, founded in 1825, and the Leipzig Book Fair, the German Library was established in 1912. Its mission was to collect, archive, bibliographically document and make accessible all literature published in Germany. The library’s first building, designed by Oskar Pusch, opened in 1916.

Increasing storage needs and additional space for the German Museum of Books and Letters necessitated the construction of the first (1936) and second extensions (1963), which were still undertaken under the auspices of the architect Oskar Pusch, consisting of two L-shaped multi-story wing buildings flanking the central reading room. The third extension (1982) by Dieter Seidlitz at the western edge of the site is comprised of five windowless square towers of varying height arranged around a central core. Above ground, this book high-rise was connected to the historic library only by a narrow steel tube encapsulating an automated book transportation system.

Gabriele Glöckler’s 2011 addition to the German National Library is the fourth extension of the ensemble. The library master plan was laid out for a total capacity of 10 million volumes, assuming an annual growth rate of 50,000 books and thus reflecting a significant increase in book production and a broadening of literary topics. The most recent extension consists of two distinct building segments, both extending outward from the foot of the tower, curvilinear in plan and section with reversing motion at their shifted interface. The building extends the concavity of the 120 m long facade of the Oskar Pusch structure, and then swoops into convexity outside the confines of the adjacent Deutscher Platz square. With its expressive architectural language, the addition negotiates spatially and stylistically between the original historicist library and the tower as a symbol of past GDR modernity.

The formal language is derived from the shape of a book, comprising a book block and the book board. Shelved flat and hovering over translucent ground levels, the two volumes expose spine or fore edge respectively to the public realm of the street, as if to remind viewers and users of the changing method of organizing books on shelves. Historically, as book production expanded the marking of the book title on the spine prevailed over the tradition of writing the title with ink on the trimmed edge. As a result, the orientation of books on the shelf changed from fore edge facing out to spine facing out. Paying homage to Johann Sebastian Bach’s life in Leipzig, Gabriele Glöckler transposed the auditory information of the Goldberg Variations, a work for harpsichord first published in 1741, into a visual sensory system by modulating the intensity of the spectral color red applied to the facade panels enclosing the magazine floors.

The entrance, located in the glazed shear plane created by the offset of the two new building volumes, marks the beginning of an interior public way. It weaves old and new building fabric into a new architectural amalgamation, while connecting areas of intensive public use. Beginning with the exhibition floor of the German Museum of Books and Letters, the passage subtly transits via a grand stair with a view onto the Deutscher Platz to the upper floor of the Oskar Pusch building. The exhibition space of the German Museum of Books and Letters is subdivided by circulation areas defining fluidly designed organically-shaped and climate-controlled showcases and a floating space for temporary exhibitions along the new reading room for the museum, with a special suspended space – the vault – for light-sensitive exhibits. Thoughtful interventions into the historic fabric allow the spatial and visual continuation of the public circulation spine, doubling as exhibition space along the courtyard-inserted, all-glass German Music Archive to the existing reading rooms.

An integrated climate control system with a highly efficient insulation, an active double skin roof membrane providing circulation air depending on the season and an array of energy-generating geothermal wells substantially reduce the energy consumption of the building. Conservation of the materials is a key objective and therefore a relative humidity of 50 % (+-5) is maintained throughout the closed stacks. The collection is protected by a system of firewalls with automated fire doors which regulate, in case of a fire, the infiltration of replacement air to optimize the smoke exhaust system. By circulating hot or chilled water through the window mullions, the window walls become part of the heating and cooling system. Triple-glazed window panels with sun protection coating provide optimal insulation values, offer even interior daylight density and reduced infiltration of ultraviolet radiation, while avoiding mechanical shading devices. All furniture and the exhibition architecture was designed by Gabriele Glöckler as well and forms an integral part of the complex.