Description
A history of the library often begins with the observation that the word library refers to both the building and the collection. Given modern-day technological developments, one might ask if there is then a future for libraries. This question is made easier to answer if we extend this definition: libraries
From the 19th Century to Modernism and the Present Day
“The exterior of a building should suggest, as much as possible, its designation and interior function. The distinguishing features of its exterior, in accord with the interior, express most expediently and most directly the characteristic of a building,”[1] wrote Friedrich Weinbrenner in 1809 in a treatise on theater buildings. J. C. Loudon expressed it as follows in 1833: “Every building should appear to be what it is, and every part of a building ought to indicate externally its particular use.”[2] The belief that the exterior form of a building should express its function therefore has a long tradition. At the turn of the 20th century, Louis Sullivan expressed this even more succinctly in his declaration in 1896 that “form follows function”, which would later become a central tenet of Modernism. Le Corbusier wrote that, “The plan proceeds from the inside out; the exterior is the result of an interior.”[3] Hugo Häring described what he called
The pithy formula “form follows function” fails, however, to take into account that the relationship between space and function is often both complex and contradictory. We know too that architectural briefs rarely ask for nothing more than to fulfill the requested function.
In reality, the 20th century has been an endless search for a unique expression that only rarely relates specifically to the function of the building. In addition, buildings often last longer than the purpose they were designed for, later being altered to serve a different function. The Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, Germany, was originally a residence from the Renaissance period that was converted into a library by August Friedrich Straßburger in 1760, while the Ulmer Hof, a 17th century palace in Eichstätt, Germany, was converted into a library by Karljosef Schattner in 1976.
A further reason why the exterior cannot always be an expression of the inner function is that buildings stand in a specific context that often determines the form of a building. The Biblioteca Marciana in Venice was designed as part of the Procuratie in Venice, which defines the urban space of St. Mark’s Square and the Piazzetta and does not express any of the functions it contains as individual buildings.
And there is another important reason why there cannot always be a direct architectonic relationship between form and function. The history of functions and the history of form, or of architectural space, are not synchronous. In the late 18th century and early 19th century, the function of public buildings changed dramatically but architectural space remained more or less the same during this period. And in the early 20th century, new spatial concepts changed the face of architecture although the underlying functional requirements changed little.
The people who commissioned the libraries of the 16th and 17th centuries were kings, noblemen, popes, princes and bishops. Such libraries almost always housed a private collection and were an expression of an individual’s preference: that of the king or nobleman. With the age of Enlightenment, and after the French Revolution in particular, there was a significant change in social systems throughout Europe. From the 18th century, and even more so in the 19th century, libraries were for everyone to use. From then on libraries were, “a sort of general archive [containing] all times, all ages, all forms, all tastes in one place … a place of all times that is itself outside time and protected from its erosion”,[5] as the philosopher Michel Foucault has written.
At the beginning of the 19th century, shortly after the French Revolution, the French architect Nicolas Durand articulated ideal plans for almost every kind of public building that a city in the new republic should have, including a library, museum, theater, hospital, school and law court. All of these are public buildings that for the most part did not exist in the cities of the Middle Ages, Renaissance or the Baroque. His design for a museum and his design for a library share two characteristic qualities: Durand designed them as free-standing public buildings, placing great emphasis on their public character and accessibility. Both buildings can therefore be entered from all sides.
Designs for a museum and for a library, Jean-Nicolas-Louis Durand, 1802–1809. The form of both buildings emphasizes their public character and accessibility.
Durand’s teacher, the revolutionary architect Boullée, likewise emphasized the accessibility and public character of these new public buildings, as can be seen clearly in his design for an opera house and the entrance elevation of the new Bibliothèque du Roi in particular. The plans elevate the aspects of accessibility and public character to the most important feature of their designs. These plans were tantamount to a political statement: they were buildings for a new self-assured civil society, not just for a select circle of privileged people. The libraries and museums were no longer embedded in castles and palaces; they stood on their own in urban space and were open to everyone.
Bibliothèque du Roi, Paris, Étienne-Louis Boullée, 1785. Entrance elevation
But while Durand’s library plans from the year 1809 are an ideal plan in terms of public presence, they are not an ideal plan for a new library. Durand knew that libraries would no longer house just the collection of a king or prince. He also knew that libraries need spaces that are not only for exhibiting and reading books, but also for managing and storing them. But Durand had probably never spoken to a librarian. There are eight entrances, which means there are also eight exits through which one can leave the library with a book under one’s coat. The book storage areas, located in the corners of the building, are far too small and neither they nor the administrative areas are directly connected to the other spaces in the library.
Leopoldo della Santa’s design for a library in 1816 was the first to exhibit an ideal arrangement of functions. The library is divided into three areas that still exist in a more or less similar form to the present day: a space for reading, a storage area for books, and administrative areas. All of these areas are linked logically with one another and there is one single entrance and exit. Della Santa’s tripartite library was an answer to the long-held dream of a universal library, one that could hold all the books in the entire world and which could be looked after by more than one librarian. The universal library of the 19th century was a library open to the people whose stock of books was organized and collected according to scholarly criteria. It marked the greatest functional change to the library since the age of Antiquity.
Design for a library, Leopoldo della Santa, 1816. The floor plan shows its division into three sections: reading (central reading room), book stacks (left and right), and administration (small rooms next to the four atria), an arrangement that is still common today
During the same period, however, architectural space and architectural form remained largely constant. There were no revolutionary changes. New public buildings contained the same customary set of forms – rotunda, open hall and loggia –, a typology of spaces that we can see in almost all public buildings from the 19th century. The architects of the 19th century answered questions of function with the concept of spatial typology and spatial character, not with architectural form. These spatial types had been used for over 2,000 years and were simply adapted to meet different functions. The rotunda, for example, could be a sacral space, an exhibition space or a reading room. In the 19th century, the function was not expressed in terms of architectural or spatial form but by the character of the space. The building’s form could remain the same for all three functions, although the spatial character differed in each case.
In 1835, Karl-Friedrich Schinkel drew up a design for a tripartite library, although it was never built. It is a very rational design and unlike his Altes Museum next to the Lustgarten in Berlin, which seems to be heavily influenced by the entrance to Boullée’s design for the Bibliothèque du Roi, his library had a more modest entrance similar to that conceived by della Santa.
Design for Berlin State Library, Karl-Friedrich Schinkel, 1835. This tripartite library was never built
In 1868, Henri Labrouste took della Santa’s sketch and translated it into a building that was to become an architectural masterpiece. Here too, the library is divided into three sections, with an area for reading, a storage area for books and administrative areas.
French National Library, Paris, Henri Labrouste, 1868. This library also has a reading room, book stacks and administrative areas.
Towards the end of the 19th century and in the early 20th century, architectural space changed dramatically. Architects began developing new spatial concepts that were no longer compatible with the spatial principles of past epochs. Despite their respective differences, the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Classical periods all shared the same fundamental notion of retained or enclosed space. The Modernist architecture of the early 20th century broke with this, positing a new spatial concept of open or flowing space. Never before in the history of architecture had there been such a radical shift in the development of architectural styles and architectural form. The old spatial typologies had no place in the new concept of open flowing space. A rotunda would be unthinkable. The pattern that had prevailed until the 19th century, in which an interior design and arrangement could exist within a wholly different exterior, was rendered impossible by the new spatial concept in which inside flowed into outside and vice versa.
How did this shift affect the design of libraries? Gunnar Asplund (1885–1940) was an architect who stood with one leg in the 19th century and the other in the 20th century. The history of his design for the City Library in Stockholm illustrates how Asplund’s approach changed and this is visible in the design of the building and in one’s experience of it. Paradoxically, this shift is best seen in the modern plinth. The main section of the building, the library itself, stands on a modern plinth that appears to float above ground. Here history is turned on its head: it appears as if the old grows out of the new and not the other way around.
City Library in Stockholm, Gunnar Asplund, 1928. Perspective, floor plan and section
The succession of spaces that lead into the interior follows the concept of enclosed spaces. The stairs to the entrance on the modern plinth are firmly clasped by flanking walls. Thereafter follows a clear entrance situation – something that Modernist open space largely eradicated – from which one enters a dark corridor that successively narrows. At the end of the corridor is a large, brightly illuminated space in which the books are kept. The main room of the library is a metaphor for knowledge. This concept is again very much in the tradition of the 19th century, as Modernism is not receptive to expressing space in terms of metaphors. At the same time, the large, central space is very restrained and devoid of paintings and ornamentation: just books, white walls and light. Asplund therefore created a space that is in the tradition of the 19th century but can also be read as a modern space. Asplund employs a system of shelving embedded in the walls in order to give the central space the typical character of a library. The City Library in Stockholm is, however, one of the last great libraries of the 20th century to use such a system.
City Library in Stockholm. The central space is flooded with light and the books are stored in shelves embedded in the walls.
From 1930 onwards, the large enclosed reading room and embedded shelving fell out of use for two reasons. Firstly, embedded wall shelving was not compatible with the concept of flowing space. And secondly, the large central reading room was no longer able to accommodate the growing stock of books. The distance between the books and the reading space grew ever larger. In Stockholm, the reading rooms are already located elsewhere, namely in side wings of the buildings.
The Finnish architect Alvar Aalto designed a library for Viborg (Viipuri), Finland, previously in Russia, in 1927 as part of an architecture competition. The library, which was completed in 1935, stands on its own in a park and its different volumes do not relate to a specific external situation, only to its inner function. The administrative wing is located in a separate element. In Aalto’s design the library floor plan is increasingly a flowing and open landscape. Nevertheless there are still echoes of the enclosed spaces of old in this library.
Library in Viborg, Alvar Aalto, 1935. General view and first floor plan. The volumes express the functions within: the narrow bar contains the administrative areas.
In a later concept for the Library of the Mount Angel Benedictine College in Mount Angel, Oregon, Aalto eradicated enclosed space entirely. In his design, almost all the spaces flow into one another and only the lecture hall and administrative areas remain as closed spaces. The library has no reading room at all: the reading areas are instead distributed throughout the library.
Library of the Mount Angel Benedictine College, Mount Angel, Oregon, Alvar Aalto, 1970. Atrium and floor plan. The public spaces and reading areas flow into one another. Only the lecture hall and administrative areas are enclosed spaces.
Hans Scharoun’s design for the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin as part of the Kulturforum near Potsdamer Platz epitomizes the spatial concept of early Modernism. It manifests the ideas of Modernism by reconfiguring the library as an open landscape of spaces that flow into one another. But even when the library has a new spatial concept, it still reflects the basic functional concept of the early 19th century and the call of the Enlightenment for a boundless and open universal library.
Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, Hans Scharoun, 1978. The library is a landscape of flowing space.
From 1960 onwards, the unconditional propagation of the new concepts of Modernist architecture began to wane. People called for a less radical form of Modernism that is receptive to the past, in which urban context is respected and enclosed spaces once again feature in interiors. The Baden State Library in Karlsruhe, Germany, is an example of this. Designed in 1989 by Oswald Mathias Ungers, it relates to the forms and spatial structure of its surroundings. In particular, the composition and formal vocabulary of the city’s protestant church, designed by Friedrich Weinbrenner in 1816, influence the design of the library. In this project, the central reading room also makes an appearance. Like other library projects designed by Giorgio Grassi and Aldo Rossi, this project returns to the concept of enclosed space.
Baden State Library, Karlsruhe, Oswald Mathias Ungers, 1989. The design makes reference to spatial structures in the urban context, especially the protestant church (left) designed by Friedrich Weinbrenner in 1816.
From the early 21st century onwards, new information and communication technologies started to influence how libraries are run and built: the type of media has diversified, and books are no longer the only media that libraries make available. The way in which media are stored also changes, because new forms of media no longer require physical space. Likewise, the library user’s behavior and relationship changes because knowledge and information is no longer bound to a physical room in one particular place. Although some effects of these transformations are already evident and palpable, the true extent and effect of these changes remain uncertain. What we do know is that there are more publications, lectures and podium debates on the future of public libraries than ever before.
Enclosed and Flowing Space
Despite these changes, we can still find examples of both types of enclosed and flowing space in library buildings from recent years. Buildings such as the Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum in Berlin, designed by (Max Dudler, 2009), are oriented around strongly defined spaces. The design emphasizes the presence and the specific character of the reading room, which employs a classical arrangement with tables following the pattern used in the 19th century. The implied assumption here is that fundamental shifts in the function will not entail fundamental changes to the building and its spatial arrangement.
Jacob-und-Wilhelm-Grimm-Zentrum, Berlin, Max Dudler, 2009. Fourth floor plan. An orthogonal arrangement of reading desks and bookshelves defines the space.
Other library buildings such as the Sendai Mediatheque, designed by Toyo Ito, and the Rolex Learning Center in Lausanne by SANAA (2010) employ a concept of flowing space. Here the presence of the books is not emphasized and furnishings are designed to be movable and non-intrusive, so as not to create boundaries. Both buildings employ a free arrangement of tables that are not necessarily dedicated to working in peace and quiet. The users are not forced to sit next to one another in isolated concentration but can take a seat at a small round table, making it possible to talk and exchange opinions. These open spatial landscapes emphasize seamless interconnection, whether between the parts of the space, between areas of knowledge or social contacts.
Sendai Mediatheque, Toyo Ito, 2001. First floor plan. The position of furniture is not fixed in this flowing space.
Early Modernism not only saw new opportunities in open space; it also recognized the potential that high-rise buildings have for building an entirely new and modern city. High-rise buildings have had a greater impact on the traditional notion of public urban space than the open-plan configurations of the early modern period. But how has this development influenced the design of libraries?
In 1960, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, who had designed high-rise buildings since the early 1950s, created a library building for Yale University. While it cannot be classified as a skyscraper, the arrangement of spaces within is clearly vertical and not horizontal.
Beinicke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, 1963. The spaces are arranged vertically above one another.
Louis Kahn’s library for the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, also arranges the reading areas on several floors stacked above one another. This arrangement presents the architect with a challenge, as the flow of space from floor to floor is interrupted by staircases, meaning that one cannot wander so freely from section to section. Kahn, who does not adhere to the early Modernist concept of flowing space, resolves this problem by introducing a vast central space that reveals the full extent of the library on entering the building: visitors take in the library as a whole in a single glance.
Phillips Exeter Library in Exeter, New Hampshire, Louis Kahn, 1971, section. The reading areas are stacked over several floors.
Steven Holl’s design for a library in 1988 also takes on the challenge a multi-story library. It demonstrates that multi-story arrangements also open up new possibilities and that the concept of flowing space can help to gather a multi-story space.
Design for an extension of the American Memorial Library in Berlin, Steven Holl, 1988. Diagram of the circulation and interior perspective. The multi-story space is structured as a flowing space.
The Bibliothèque nationale de France by Dominique Perrault was one of the first libraries to employ a high-rise configuration in a way that the vertical division of the floors does not present a problem. While many libraries arrange the public areas, such as the reading room, above the book stacks, Perrault reverses the typical pattern, placing the book stacks, which are not accessible to the public, in the four corner towers. Because the towers are simple storage areas, there is no need for the floors to be spatially connected. The public areas are located in the large plinth, arranged generously around a large forest-like courtyard garden. Perrault’s design is, of course, not solely motivated by the desire to find a new logical way of resolving the problem of dealing with ever greater storage areas. The built mass of the book stacks serve as beacons visible from afar. The four towers represent four open books, communicating the purpose of the building to the outside world.
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, Dominique Perrault, 1996. The book stacks, which are not accessible to the public, are located in the library towers.
We can, therefore, conclude that the question of the future of function and form in library design needs to be addressed separately. Changes to the function do not automatically entail changes to the building form.
While most librarians agree that the function of libraries is changing drastically, architects are not convinced that architectural form is shifting to the same radical degree as it did during the period of early Modernism. Indeed, some recent examples have successfully demonstrated that classical spatial concepts can still be a viable option and offer potential for further development.
Footnotes
Friedrich Weinbrenner, Briefe und Aufsätze, collated by Arthur Valdenaire. Karlsruhe: G. Braun, 1926.
J. C. Loudon, An Encyclopedia of Cottage, Farm and Villa Architecture and Furniture, 1833.
Le Corbusier, Vers une architecture. Paris: G. Crès, 1923 (English: Towards a New Architecture. London: J. Rodker, 1931; and Jean-Louis Cohen (ed.), Toward an Architecture, new translation by John Goodman. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2007, p. 214.)
Hugo Häring, “Form der Leistungserfüllung”, Innen-Dekoration, October 1932, p. 361.
Michel Foucault, “Different Spaces”, trans. R. Hurley, in Michel Foucault, Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, 2 vols., London: Penguin, 1998, p. 182.
Originally published in: Nolan Lushington, Wolfgang Rudorf, Liliane Wong, Libraries: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2016.