BnL Bibliothèque Nationale de Luxembourg Building, Boulevard Kennedy Architecture Images
BnL Bibliothèque Nationale de Luxembourg
National Library Building Development on Avenue John F. Kennedy design by BOLLES+WILSON Architects
4 Sep 2013
BnL Bibliothèque Nationale de Luxembourg Building
Design: BOLLES+WILSON
Location: Avenue John F. Kennedy, Luxembourg
BnL Bibliothèque Nationale de Luxembourg
Address: 37 bd F-D Roosevelt, 2450 Luxembourg
Phone: +352 22 97 55 1
Start of construction: 2014
The BOLLES+WILSON 2003 competition win for the New Luxemburg National Library is, after a five year hibernation, currently underway in the detailed design phase and will break ground in 2014.
model photograph © Tomasz Samek
It is now relocated from the site of the original International Competition (a rescripting of the building that housed the first ever sitting of the European Parliament) and faces the Boulevard Kennedy, a re-urbanized motorway that monumentally focuses the Plateau Kirchberg, Luxemburg’s Euro administration quartier.
model photograph © Tomasz Samek
The planned BnL, with its new and optimized program, addresses the Boulevard with an inviting, transparent and representative conical facade that metaphorically sucks visitors deep into the interior. Above the entrance and behind the inwardly sloping facade are conference rooms (bridging the entrance foyer).
The interior unfolds as a landscape of reading terraces stepping up to a consultation deck, the top of five floors of secure archives, a magazine acropolis, the core of the building. These five archive levels will contain the extremely valuable historic memory of the Duchy of Luxemburg.
Their bunker-like encasing is secure against hostile forces and offers a stable 18° for historic documents. These if brought out too quickly would suffer ‘book shock’. The clients, the administration Bâtiments publics (office of public works) took the brave decision to ignore the official Brussels philosophy for sustainability (a 30 cm overcoat of thermal insulation) and go one better with a low-tech concept of thick walls utilizing thermal mass, natural ventilation with night purging. All interior materials are selected for their absorptive capacity both acoustic and thermal.
image © BOLLES+WILSON
The linear library arrangement leads up, like a landscape garden, to the upper reading plateau. This is elevated to the level of a forest directly behind the BnL. The archive plateau is externally protected by a rough gabion encasement, a reuse of stones dug out for the basement level and reiterating the landscaped escarpment of the adjacent park.
Rather than blingized renderings, presentation and the design evolution of the BnL has been tested with a wood (1:100 scale) working model, made and continually adjusted in BOLLES+WILSONS in-house workshop.
images © BOLLES+WILSON
BnL Bibliothèque Nationale de Luxembourg – Building Information
Title: BnL Bibliothèque Nationale de Luxembourg
Address Avenue John F. Kennedy, Luxembourg – Kirchberg
Architect BOLLES+WILSON – Prof. Julia Bolles-Wilson, Peter Wilson, Münster
Competition: 2003 First Prize
Planning: 2011 –
Realisation: 2014 –
Gross floor area: ca. 39.000 sqm
Client: Grand-Duché de Luxembourg, Ministère du Développement durable et des Infrastructures, Administration des bâtiments publics, 10, rue du St-Esprit, L-1475 Luxembourg
IN COLLABORATION WITH:
Contact Architects: WW+
Structural engineers: Schroeder & Associés (ingénieurs-conseils)
Service engineers: Felgen & Associés Engineering SA
Energy concept: Ernst Basler + Partner AG
Photographer: Tomasz Samek (model)
BnL Bibliothèque Nationale de Luxembourg images / information from BOLLES+WILSON
Location: Avenue John F. Kennedy, Luxembourg, northern Europe
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Comments / photos for the BnL Bibliothèque Nationale de Luxembourg page welcome
Website: www.bnl.public.lu