The opening of the Qatar National Library in Doha took place on April 16 at the highest level: the ceremony was attended by the Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, one of his wives and daughter, the executive director of the Qatar Education Foundation, as well as numerous high-ranking officials.
The complex, designed by OMA, brings together the departments of the national, public, university libraries, as well as the Heritage Collection: the most important texts and manuscripts of Arab-Islamic culture. On an area of more than 40,000 m2 the new library can house over a million books and several thousand readers.
The National Library is part of the so-called City of Education, an area of the capital of Qatar, where educational campuses of the world's leading universities are built. By 2016, the headquarters of the Education Foundation and a research institute, also built according to OMA projects, had already opened on its territory. The library was
It was designed in 2008–2010, but the implementation started in 2012 was delayed due to the crisis.
The capacious and solid form of the building continues the ideas of 1960s modernism. In plan, it is almost square, but two corners are raised high - this is how the corners of a paper sheet are raised, folding origami: deep ledges-loggias are formed in front of the entrances, in the afternoon - shady, in the evening - illuminated. When viewed from the south, it appears that the stone frame of the glass façade is supported by a single column. The side facades, west and east, are also subordinated to large irregular rhombuses framing vast surfaces of wavy glass, which helps to properly diffuse the sun's rays - so that natural light inside is comfortable for reading and does not harm books. The device of the entrances works for the intrigue associated with the scenography of the change in illumination: the visitor first falls from the bright sun into a deep shadow, and then into the diffused light of the library's interior. The fact that the entrances are close to the center of the volume helps to quickly navigate inside without wandering along the corridors.
There are practically no corridors here - the interior is one-piece, without partitions. The high ceilings are covered with white, again designed to properly diffuse light, aluminum panels. The distance from corner to corner is 138 meters, and the whole space is unobstructed from the highest points, both from the very raised corners, and from the wide unsupported bridge-passage, thrown inside from south to north. On the bridge, in the uppermost area, there are reading and exhibition rooms, as well as a multifunctional auditorium with a screen that can be removed and taken out as needed.
The inner space is arranged like an amphitheater: on the slopes of the raised corners, as well as on the inclined northern part, there are steps-terraces lined with bookshelves. The terraces are connected by stairs and ramps.
The shelves are made of the same white marble as the floor, in addition, they have built-in lamps, ventilation and a system for placing books in place, in a word, bookshelves are not furniture here, but an organic part of the building.
“We designed the space so that you could see all the books in the panorama,” explains Rem Koolhaas. - You are instantly surrounded by literally the entire collection - all books are physically present, visible, accessible without any effort. The interior space is so large that it has an almost urban scale: it can accommodate a whole population of people and books."
For the manuscripts of the Heritage Collection, in the central triangle, six meters below floor level, there is a kind of "Minotaur labyrinth", or, more precisely, a figurative semblance of an archaeological excavation with the remains of foundations and walls of ancient buildings. From above, it is open to daylight, moreover, on the "roof" of the massive shelves made of beige travertine, there are observation platforms in two places: you can go here not only to take a selfie, but also observe the exposition of old books from the upper vantage point.
OMA has been interested in typology of library buildings for many years, the Doha City Library is their third implementation in this genre. They lost the building competition in 1989
National Library of France Dominique Perrault. Later they managed to build the Seattle Central Library in the USA and the Alexis de Tocqueville Library in France.
