La BnF is Given a New Identity by Atelier Bruno Gaudin Architectes
Atelier Bruno Gaudin Architectes' mission for the restructuring and transformation of the Bibliothèque nationale de France Richelieu (the National Library) comes to an end after 15 years of work. The building has been profoundly transformed to meet the contemporary challenges of welcoming the public, opening up to the city, and sharing and exchanging with the younger generations.
The overall architectural project management was carried out by L’atelier Gaudin architects. The special case of certain areas were handled by Jean François Lagneau and Michel Trubert, chief architects of Historic Monuments, who restored the decor.
The large, magnificent, worn, fragmented, dark and dilapidated treasure chest has now been given a new identity, full of light. First of all, an entrance to the Vivienne Garden has been created, offering the possibility of a vast through hall that is accompanied by the elevation of the new main staircase in the centre of the composition. This entrance allows the new poetic garden to take its place. It reunites three facades that were once at the back and have become entrance facades to the Vivienne and Roux-Spitz halls. A small transparent kiosk overlooking the street and surrounded by vegetation houses the site’s access control.
The architectural intervention of the Gaudin agency concerns the whole of the Quadrilatère and the logic of the project has remained the same whatever the nature of the spaces treated: understanding the site, determining the architectural qualities of a structure, a space, the historical trace it represents, dealing with the constraints, articulating the existing structures with the project without rupture, dialoguing, adapting... It can be said that each room was the object of a project in itself, halls, inscribed spaces, reading rooms, circulations, existing storage rooms for bookstacks preserved from the 19th and 20th centuries, new storage areas for bookstacks, offices, workshops, etc.
In July 2007, the Atelier Gaudin was appointed as the project manager. Since then, the Atelier has had the opportunity to travel this long road, keeping the memory intact of all the twists and turns it has gone through and the obstacles it has overcome one after the other. Now it’s time to cherish the impeccable outcome.
Comments