Description

As part of the Community of Madrid’s extensive library system, the Biblioteca Pública Usera – José Hierro serves a southern district of Madrid of the same name. Completed in 2003, the Biblioteca Pública Usera is one in a network dedicated to reaching a metropolitan population of 7 million. The winning competition entry of architects Iñaki Ábalos and Juan Herreros, the library acknowledges through design the issues of a district troubled by poverty, high levels of unemployment and crime. Rising out of the suburban landscape of Usera, the 3,500 m² library is distinctly divided into two parts; a concrete plinth and a tower clad in prefabricated metal panels. The plinth houses a car and bicycle park and its roof serves as the base of an urban, outdoor plaza. The tower consists of four double-height levels and seven mezzanine levels that, with the exception of a small elevator core, are entirely free of vertical structure. The incorporation of the structural elements into the facade permits the creation of open spaces and reading rooms that are both well proportioned and secure. Stairs, restrooms, stacks and program services densely placed within the mezzanine floors overlook these double-height spaces creating a relationship of dualities.

The library is sited amidst an urban open space within the dense apartment blocks and busy streets of Usera. Perched on a hill, the library looms above the street like a modern fortress with its long and narrow apertures. Ábalos and Herreros’ proposal for a vertical scheme occupying only a portion of this rectangular parcel of public land allows for a substantial part of the parcel to be dedicated as public open space. These include a more formal garden on the south side and an informal urban plaza at the entry off the Avenida de Rafaela Ybarra. In doing so, the architects extend the library as a common “living room” to the outdoors. The architects describe their design as a “catalytic converter which recognizes this space of collective activity in Usera, establishing it as a centerpiece and giving it urban meaning.”

In this intense, sunlit neighborhood of Madrid, the interior of the library is purposefully designed as an atmosphere of semi-darkness – a cool atmosphere pierced by rays of light from the narrow slits in the facade. This marked transition from the exterior is most evident in the lofty shaft-like entrance hall. The spaces are minimal and spare, punctuated only by windows that are proportioned as slots and surfaces covered in wallpaper designed by artist, Peter Halley. This wallpaper with its abstract pattern of different colors is allegedly derived from a Jorge Luis Borges story. Reminiscent of both graffiti art and the actual graffiti scrawled on the lower portions of the facade, the use of this wallpaper creates an internal environment that is deliberate and poetic within a language of the streets. This wallpaper also covers the interior surface of the shutters of certain fixed windows, windows that narrowly frame views of this district against the distant backdrop of Madrid. These controlled perspectives are appropriated as part of the interior of the library, providing views of a seemingly ordered world in a disordered environment.

Named after José Hierro, one of Spain’s contemporary poets known for his existential style, the Biblioteca Pública Usera is a spare and moving work of architecture that captures the essence of a gritty, modern existence. With the ever changing nature of the muted but slightly reflective facade, the tower is at once a mirror of its ­surroundings and a refuge from it. Ábalos and Herreros were able to put into form that which was articulated by Peter Halley: “We had some provocative things to say about the underlying structure of the world we all experience that most people really didn’t want to face.” In post-Franco Spain, these thoughts are expressed with simplicity in the Biblioteca Pública Usera.

“Peter Halley talks to Dan Cameron – ‘80s Then – Interview”, http://petter-halley.blogspot.de

---

Originally published in: Nolan Lushington, Wolfgang Rudorf, Liliane Wong, Libraries: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2016.