Anna CHMURA

Ewa KOBIERSKA-MACIUSZKO

THE WARSAW UNIVERSITY LIBRARY - design for a new building

The Warsaw University Library is the third largest in Poland, the largest are the National Library, also located in Warsaw and the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków. It was established up in 1816 with the Warsaw University , then called the Royal University. All this time it functionedas a public library for research and cultural purposes, it was also known as the Central Library of Social Sciences for twenty five years.

The library collection includes over two and a half milion volumes and presents a comprehensive insight into Polish 19th and 20th century literature as a whole and a wide range of foreign scientific works. Works that are collected today are primarily connected with those fields of study which are taught at the University. Humanistic and social sciences are most widely represented. There are also about 250,000 items belonging to a special collection of priceless materials: early prints from royal, monastic and private sources and some 12,000 items from the 18th century Bibliotheca Zalusciana; collection ofdrawings and prints with works from the Westeuropean art schools (M. Raimondi, A. Durer, J. Callot, Rembrandt, Piranesi). Over 3 000 architectural drawings and plans closely reflect the history and culture of Poland. Among old Polish manuscripts from the 16th-18th century worthy of note are the manuscripts which cover the history of the Reformation and the dissident movement in Poland (16th-19th c.).

One hundred years ago, during the partition of Poland between 3 occupying powers, the Library had space for ot a new edifice for 700 thousand volumes, built exactly in compliance with Leopold della Santa's manual, the 3 parts of the library comprised of the main reading room, the librarians' workshops and a 7-storey close storage space. In the thirties it became filled to capacity. Now there are no place for the books, not only are the shelves are filled but even the space on the floor is all taken up by books. There is no place for readers, staff and terminals with online catalogue. Plans for new edifice were being pushed for 40 years, but it was impossible because of financial and political reasons (the Warsaw University was seen as a center of opposition). After political changes in 1989 we had initially the idea of moving our Library to the huge and monumental office building belonging to the former communist party but it appeared impossible for technical reasons. Then, the Solidarity government with prime minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki decided about renting this building to certain financial and trade institutions (among others Warsaw Stock Exchange) and in this way financing the construction of a new library building. The architects competition in 1993 was the next step. It was, as always, a challenging task for architect teams, but this time it was also a difficult task for the Warsaw University librarians. We considered it was the only moment for creating a general conceptual outline for the future Library, different from the existing one used for the last one hundred years.

In the brief set out in the competition the most important aspect for both, architects and librarians, was the need for open access to the main part of the collection. Open access to such a big scientific collection (unique in Poland) was to be a key feature. We had no own experience but instead we had rather sceptical staff used for traditional ways of work and, from the other hand, our strong belief it is just only proper moment for changes.

We received fifty designs, most of them full of very interesting, creative solutions as regards to urban setting and the need for open access. The design presented in the Paris LIBER Seminar by Marek BUDZYÑSKI & Zbigniew BADOWSKI, with the assistance of their design group was awarded with 1st prize and plans went ahead to see the design through.

The new Library Building and the Botanical Garden are located two blocks away from the University, (a 10 min. walking distance). The building itself has 4 storeys above ground and level 1 and 2 below ground level. The lowest level will be used as a garage for 330 cars and technical utilities. The second lowest level will temporarily cater for commertial needs and will accommodate shops, bars, and a multipurpose auditorium. The structure for this has already been prepared to make way for compact storage requirements, and will eventually replace the level's commercial usage in 15 - 20 years.

All upper levels are designed with open access to the library. The front part of the building, with the passageway for pedestrians which cuts across the structure at various points, connected with or separeted from "inside Street" is designed for office space to be let and a few book stores at ground level.

The new library is located next to the Botanical Garden which provided the setting for the design of an "Enviromentally Friendly structure". The idea was to match architecture and nature and harmoniously and emphasize the contrast on the other hand. The contrast is achieved by the extensive use of concrete inside the library with what one can see outside-plants, botanical gardens, etc.

The building itself is made of reinforced concrete with 7,20 m x 7,20 m grids. It has key features such as passageways, catalogue hall and main reading room that are all lit by daylight. Three facades, made of concrete with 1,8 m by 1,8 m grids fill up with square windows. The space between the windows is covered by copper wire which is fastened to the concrete wall and act as a support climbing plants. Looking from the botanical garden the copper wire is even more visible on the facade where there are special metal attachments for directing the growth of the plants as they reach the roof. The roof itself forms part of the garden white small trees, bushes and flowers and foot paths. Everybody can goes up to the roof along the huge outside stairs, get to a hemispherical alcove, goes over the steel bridges over the skylight and see throught them what's going on inside, in the library.

Access to the "roof-garden" may be gained by walking along the huge exterior stairway . The stairs lead to a steel brigdes from which the interior of the library can be seen.

The main facade forms is part of the building which is partitioned by passageways. This structure which is concrete columns and slabs is enhanced with reflecting greyish green glass walls and chemically treated copper to give it an ageing effect. The frontispiece sign is engraveed with the inscription "Biblioteka Uniwersytecka" ( University library). Underneath are 8 big broze panels (4m x 7m). On each panel there will inscriptions in different languages and alphabets including Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Chinese, Sanskrit as well as musical and matematical notation.

Between these 8 panels there are 4 narrow and high entrances which lead to the passageways and main library entrance.

The Library takes up four levels of the main part of the building with a total area of about 40,000 square metres. The main entrance is on the ground floor situated under a graphical representation of an open book with the Latin inscription HINC OMNIA. The public utilities include cloakroom, cafeteria, exhibition hall and main staircase to the upper ground floor the most significant one from our readers' point of view. Besides the public facilities, on the ground level there is a separate byside entrance for staff and supplies which leads to an indoor courtyard. The Aquisition Department will be running its operations on the ground level, but most of this area is taken up by compact storage for 2.5 million books and periodicals. In the middle of this space there is a big treasury of the most valuable items.

The upper three floors. All have open access to a collection of about 1.5 million volumes kept in systematic order based on the Library of Congress Clasification. All staircases and lifts take one to the upper ground floor which includes the huge catalogue hall with a reference desk - first point of basic information about Library, card and online catalogues, general directions throw open access collection. There is the circulation desk, reserve collection (about 80,000 volumes), Cataloguing Department, lecture and seminar rooms and part of the open access collection which is most often used by our readers - the humanistic and social sciences section.

The upper part of the main staircase leads to the main reading room on the first floor. There were two reasons for keeping the main reading room with 120 working stations and three librarians serving this area - as a space for general reference collection about 15,000 of wol. and only working space for studying items from close compact storage. On this floor we have also a big open space for storing current periodicals collection (about 8,000 titles) with standard readers tables and armchairs for more comfort reading. The rest of this floor is taken up by the open access collection which is surronded by single readers` tables. Access to specific subject matter will begin at the small reference desk with the librarian responsible for this branch. Our idea is to inform and help at the beginning of reader's travel throw the ranges of shelves. We would like readers conduct their research independently. The separate part of this floor is meant for audiovideo storage with several single carrels for audiovideo use. There are administrative rooms on this floor too, with two conference rooms.

The second floor's left side is an identical resemblance to the floor below it. It has an open access collection and readers' tables. There are 40 single studies also at the mezzanine hanged over the reading room. The right part of this floor stores the special collection and operates traditional system of stocks and circulation. Included are six departments with separate stocks and reading areas: Manuscripts, Maps, Prints and Drawings, Music Collection, Early prints and Social Life Documents. This area is therefore just like an old town surronded by modern districts.

The general contractor is Austrian Company PORR. They are starting just now with ground works and going to complete the task in four years. Simultaneously, we are starting in Library with preparing our collection to the big moving and, next, to the working as open access collection. If all of us, architects, engineers and librarians will be succeed in this undertaking, new Warsaw University Library would be the first so modern, flexible and userfriendly in this part of Europe.