Bibliotheca Alexandrina
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is a library in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria, which was opened in 2002 near the site of the historic Library of Alexandria. Connected to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina is a cultural center with museums and galleries, several research institutes, a convention center and a planetarium. The construction of the library was built under the auspices of UNESCO and the Egyptian government and is equipped with 2,000 reading places and shelf space for eight million books.
Architectural History
The historical library of Alexandria was the largest and most important library of classical antiquity. It was founded under Ptolemy I. of the 3rd century BC and to have had up to 700,000 scrolls. The collection of the ancient library was heavily damaged several times, the most serious destruction of the book stock was carried out by fighting in the 3rd century AD, the last works were probably during the Islamization of Egypt lost. From the ancient library no archaeological evidence preserved.
The idea for the restoration of the library at a historical site was first formulated in the early 1970s by a group of professors of ancient history at the University of Alexandria. Led by Mostafa El- Abbadi, the scientists succeeded in the mid-1980s, both the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) and the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to win for the idea.
The plot was purchased in 1985, a symbolic foundation stone was laid on 26 June 1988 by the UNESCO Director-General Federico Mayor. The Egyptian government called in the same year from an architectural competition to build a new library of Alexandria, which was won by the Norwegian architectural firm Snøhetta with Craig Edward Dykers, Kjetil Thorsen Trædal and the Austrian Christoph Kapeller as executive architects. Finally, the construction was carried out by a consortium consisting of Snøhetta and the Egyptian Hamza Associates with the participation of Egyptian, Italian and British construction companies.
To finance the project, a donors' conference was held in Aswan in 1990, in which several leaders signed a declaration of support for the construction and equipment of the Library of Alexandria. The governments of Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates presented a total of 65 million U.S. dollars to 27 million U.S. dollars donated a further 26 countries. The Egyptian government allocated 120 million dollars ready, also the development program of the United Nations involved in the project at the UNESCO.
End of 1992, the evacuation of 45,000 sqm building site at the port of Alexandria began. Although the library building to be built on an area on which in ancient palaces of the Ptolemies had found, no exploratory excavations were since the 1985 site selection has been carried out, as it would correspond to international practice. Only as had already been started in 1993 with the excavation of the pit, could according to a report in the French daily newspaper Le Monde, has been criticized in both the UNESCO and the Egyptian government, with a budget of $ 20,000, at least on a part of the construction site excavations are carried out. It succeeded the archaeologists thus two Greek mosaic floors of exceptional quality expose.
In 1995, the construction began. After six years of construction, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina was completed in July 2001, the opening ceremony took place on 16 October 2002 in the presence of numerous guests of state. The construction costs amounted to a total of 218 million U.S. dollars, which, given the high proportion of illiteracy and poverty in Egypt sparked international criticism.
Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina is the former Vice President of the World Bank, Ismail Serageldin.
Specifications
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is located south of the harbor road Corniche and to the north in the immediate vicinity of the port of philosophical and Law Faculty of the University of Alexandria.
The most striking feature of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the sea inclined towards disc-shaped glass roof with 160 m diameter. It rises from an upstream water basin. The surface of the roof is to reproduce the structure of a microprocessor wafer, but is often compared to the rising sun from the sea. The fact that the skylights are oriented to the north, no direct light into the building, but the curved structure of the roof with movable elements enables optimum use of daylight.
The semicircular southern facade is 32 m high, windowless and made of more than 3000 gray granite slabs. It is decorated with characters from all scriptures of the world, thus the claim of the library to gather the world's knowledge is expressed. The curvature of the outer wall follows the path of the sun, whereby the individual segments are successively irradiated by sunlight during the day.
The building has eleven floors, four of which are located underground. This is an area of more than 85,000 m². The interior of the library is terraced.
The building and the engineers responsible were awarded the " Outstanding Structure Award" of the IABSE in 2003. The construction works and its senior architects were awarded the 2004 Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
Equipment
About half of the library building is occupied by the reading room, which extends directly on the glass roof of the fourth sub- basement to the second floor. There are a total of 2000 reading places available, thus has the Bibliotheca Alexandrina the largest reading room in the world. Pillars in the hall are reminiscent of the ancient architectural styles, the furniture in the reading room has been specially designed for the library and donated in part by the Norwegian government.
Every floor has access, to open access library, which can contain up to 500,000 volumes. Together with the nearby buildings in the southern part of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina library magazine can accommodate a total of 8 million volumes, so it would represent the largest library in Africa and the Arab world. However, the capacity of the library due to limited financial resources will be used only to a small extent, the collection of the library consisted of five years after the opening of only 530,000 titles. The library is therefore dependent on donations of books. At the opening of the library, among other historical works on the Egyptian expedition and the construction of the Suez Canal from France were passed, Spain donated documents about the Moorish rule in Egypt. These works are exhibited in the Museum of the manuscript library.
Integrated in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina are several specialized libraries:
- A multimedia library offers audio recordings, films and reproductions of works of art.
- The Taha Hussein Library enables visually impaired people to access literature.
- For children and teenagers there are special library sectors.
- The Nobel Section collects publications of all Nobel Laureate in Literature.
One focus of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina lies in digital archiving. The entrepreneur Brewster Kahle founded the library a backup copy of it operates Internet Archive, which is accessible via more than 200 computers. The library itself is involved as part of the Million Book Project to digitize books.
Establishments
Northwest of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, a planetarium closes, whose black ball forms an ensemble together with the library building. The dome of the planetarium has a diameter of 14 meters and can also be used for the performance of IMAX films. In the basement of the Planetarium is a museum for the history of science.
Two other museums are located in the library. The Archaeological Museum is presenting alongside artefacts from the excavations before the construction of the library exhibits from the history of Egypt, including salvaged from underwater archaeologists from the harbor of Alexandria statues from the Hellenistic period. The manuscript museum displays ancient manuscripts and rare books and houses a microfilm archive of photographs of ancient manuscripts. Attached to the museum is a research center for the restoration of old manuscripts.
More research centers within the Bibliotheca Alexandrina are dedicated to calligraphy, information science, and the promotion of regional scientists ( Center for Special Studies and Programs ).
In 1991, a convention center was completed, which is now assumed, like all other institutions of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and west adjacent to the library. There is an underground passage between the two buildings. The Great Hall of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Conference Center ( BACC ) can accommodate more than 1600 guests, in addition, a number of smaller halls and exhibition spaces available. The conference program is broadly thematically wide, but a special focus on culture and politics of the Arab and Muslim world.