The complex will be devoted to four main areas of knowledge - humanities, science and technology, literature, arts - which will occupy two reading rooms intersecting crosswise. The lack of clear boundaries between these departments should contribute to the strengthening of living ties between them.
Outside, these reading rooms define the building, which has received four differently directed wings, pointing, according to the architects, to the key buildings of Caen: the 11th century abbeys Trinité and Saint-Etienne, the city train station and the new development area to the west.
The interior space of the building not only represents a coherent whole, accessible to observation from any point, but also through huge windows interacts with the environment: a park, a pedestrian alley, an embankment. The reading rooms will be flooded with sunlight, and from the inside, visitors will be able to admire the views of the city: in this way the library will turn into a "observation point of knowledge."
