Sainte-Geneviève Library,(Paris, France); 1838-50; Industrialization

Bibliotheque Sainte Genvieve is a public and university library in Paris.This is the first time of the library that not change to palace, school or apart of chapel. The building is designed by Henri Labrouste.


The library must be built on a narrow strip of land 85 meters long and 21 wide, located on the top of the Sainte-Geneviève Mountain, overlooking the Pantheon. The construction has spent eight years, the new library being opened in 1851. It leaves the neoclassical style in vogue at the time for large public buildings, for a much more sober and sleek style. It can be defined as neo-Gothic Style. The library is organize by two rows of cast iron arches. The arches are a part of decoration of the library.  The building load support by thin black iron columns. Gallery space is located in the top part of the bookcases.
On the facade, no element protrudes and a single and modest door is in the center. The architecture of this one is entered in the masonry of the building, contributing still to the stripping of the whole. It is surrounded by two carved flares that were lit at night to mark the opening of the library until 10 o'clock.
The facade of the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, however, offers a detail to showing architecture. Indeed, there are positioned a large iron tip between each window. This is the internal metal structure that appears here on the outside. The frame of the arches of the reading room is held by tie rods in the outer walls. These tie-rods pierce the facade, a priori without reason. Pointed bolt heads signal them. They are attached to iron washers striated and framed by a carved pattern (three flowers). They are located more than 18 meters above the ground. It might not be an element intended for onlookers but a message from Labrouste to his colleagues: we must proudly display the function and the constructive decisions of a building.
In the center, by the entrance door, one reaches a large vestibule with square and massive columns. The floor is marble with geometric patterns. The room crosses the building in all its width and opens on a large staircase located opposite the entrance. A garden is painted on the high parts of the walls. The architect thus wanted to give the reader's entrance course a symbolic aspect of access to knowledge, passing from a dark and somewhat crushing vestibule to a brighter staircase and finally to a vast and luminous reading room. .



On either side of this entrance are spaces intended to shelter the precious works, including massive columns that support the first floor. These two spaces then consist of cells partitioned by book cabinets and columns. Only two narrow spiral staircases at the corners allowed the storekeepers to mount the books in the reading room.



cite page
https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/873

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Villa Muller, (Prague,Czech Republic); 1930; Modern architecture

Image
The Villa Muller is located in Prague,Czech Republic. The building is designed by  Adolf Loos  in 1930. The project has appointed by the civil engineer and building contractor Frantisek Müller to design a new house for his family in 1928. The project has shown Loos’s ideas of economy and functionality, and it has name as an innovative landmark of early modernist architecture. The spacing has designed in multi-level parts of individual rooms, to show the functions and symbol. The exterior design of Villa Muller, Adolf Loos has made it white cubic façade to make it shin when the sun irradiates to the house. The fence has set higher because the architect wants to show the exterior to public, but keep the interior space to private. That’s why he designed a grant, and comfortable furniture that made by marble, wood, and silk surface. This method is representing his theory discussion” Ornament and Crime” in 1908. Adolf Loos separates the private inside and public ...
Read more

Villa Wagner I, Vienna, Austria.1886-1888; Early 20th Century Pioneers

Image
Villa Wagner I, Vienna, Austria.1886-1 888; Early 20th Century Pioneers The Villas were designed and constructed by modernist architect, Otto Wagner in Hüttelbergstraße 26, district fourteen of Vienna, lower eastern Austria. This heavily wooded part of the Alps, also known as Penzing, is the home of both Villas, which happen to occupy adjacent lots. The first Villa, larger than the second, was constructed between 1886 and 1888, founding of the Secession the year after. The Villas were constructed by Otto to be residences, but now the original Villa is owned by the heirs of painter Ernst Fuchs. Villa Wagner I is known today as the Ernst Fuchs Private Museum (Unknown, "Wagner Villa I and II").   When Wagner began construction of the first Villa, he intended to make this place a center of relaxation and somewhere where his family could rest. It has some relationship to the nearby Hütteldorf forest, with the first villa at the end of it (Unknown, "Wagner V...
Read more

Secession Building

Image
This building was a masterpiece done by Gustav Klimt, one of the most widely recognized artworks of Secession style. It is even on the national side of the Austrian coin (.50). The Vienna Secession was founded in 1897 by Gustav Klimt, Joseph Maria Olbrich, and Josef Hoffman. Because Vienna was becoming a growing metropolis and it was supposed to be represented that way. They were inspired by arts and craft and organic geometries, essentially an abstract architecture. The building has a covered courtyard structure, it provided for gallery space on all sides of a large top-lit rectangular exhibition hall in the center. The materials used in this building was mainly masonry and metal. the crowning element sketched by Klimt included a perforated metal dome, suspended between four pylons and set above profiled planar masses. The slogan of the Secessionist movement is written above the entrance of the pavilion: "To every age its art, to every art its freedom”. Below the motto, the...
Read more