2010 Valentine ServaisValentine Servais - Une nouvelle bibliothèque des chiroux
A public library …
The rights of the reader, as the writer Daniel Pennac states, in a form that is of course mischievous but also deeply humanistic and real, are an excellent basis of reflection to try and define the questioning and stake of an execution plan for a library today. It will have to make do with the loss of interest in reading, with multifom bases, a bulimic current culture and new goals.
An approach to the present function of the library, the daily experience of the librarians, the analysis of significant exemplary executions, the reflection on program lead to the conception of a library that can be at the same time a haven of privacy for the reader, a place where university students can work without being disturbed, a place of discovery for groups of children and a place where to roam for curious people. An obvious fact appears: today’s library must be, beyond the resource, a true place of collective life, a piazza, a gathering place. The library has to develop new attractions, infiltrate everyday life, propose new activities and new services…
The essential town-planning stake is thus to bring the public to the library, to connect the latter to the public space, to develop a clear reception area. The public space forms an extention to the pedestrian thoroughfare in the urban centre of Liège, offering welcoming activities to a very large public : recreation areas, open spaces, sports fields... The foundation of the library is designed as a natural continuity of the public space, a promenade offering attractive functions: places where to talk, exhibitions, a cafeteria, a press area. After that aspiration, the potential reader can wander where the mood takes them in the tower of the library and penetrate the private world of the book.
The rights of the reader, as the writer Daniel Pennac states, in a form that is of course mischievous but also deeply humanistic and real, are an excellent basis of reflection to try and define the questioning and stake of an execution plan for a library today. It will have to make do with the loss of interest in reading, with multifom bases, a bulimic current culture and new goals.
An approach to the present function of the library, the daily experience of the librarians, the analysis of significant exemplary executions, the reflection on program lead to the conception of a library that can be at the same time a haven of privacy for the reader, a place where university students can work without being disturbed, a place of discovery for groups of children and a place where to roam for curious people. An obvious fact appears: today’s library must be, beyond the resource, a true place of collective life, a piazza, a gathering place. The library has to develop new attractions, infiltrate everyday life, propose new activities and new services…
The essential town-planning stake is thus to bring the public to the library, to connect the latter to the public space, to develop a clear reception area. The public space forms an extention to the pedestrian thoroughfare in the urban centre of Liège, offering welcoming activities to a very large public : recreation areas, open spaces, sports fields... The foundation of the library is designed as a natural continuity of the public space, a promenade offering attractive functions: places where to talk, exhibitions, a cafeteria, a press area. After that aspiration, the potential reader can wander where the mood takes them in the tower of the library and penetrate the private world of the book.
