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Pritzker Prize winner Gottfried Böhm and Severin Heiermann designed the Zentralbibliothek in the Neue Mitte of Ulm, Baden-Württemberg Germany. It was completed in 2004.
The Central Library came at a time Ulm sought to rejuvenate its downtown with a series of cutting-edge modern buildings. The city combined its 1516 scholarly library and 1896 reading library into one collection primarily under one roof. The possibilities of new digital media seek integration with books in this contemporary structure that is based on historic themes. The spiritual form reflects the Jeffersonian technique of treating the scholarly library as the temple, the center of democracy and learning. It is in the center of the city, next to the old church and city hall. As it reaches vertical, the building’s floors step outwards, and then tilt 58 degrees into a classic pyramid. Circulation is at the center, with a stark red spiral staircase, that perhaps serves the same intellectual function as London City Hall: the communist notion of ascension through dialectic and revolution. |
(rs-foto– flickr/creative commons license)
(dierk schaefer– flickr/creative commons license)
(dierk schaefer– flickr/creative commons license)
(dierk schaefer– flickr/creative commons license)
(Gastev– flickr/creative commons license)
(rs-foto– flickr/creative commons license)
