Introduction

The new Library of Alexandria, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, is a truly very beautiful building whose design at the architectural and structural levels merits our attention and would repay our study.

Located on a superb site on the historic eastern harbor of Alexandria, almost exactly where the old library and the royal palace of the Ptolemies once stood, the complex comprises three main elements: the pre-existing conference center, the planetarium and the new building. They are all connected underground below the plaza into one large functional complex.

The scheme lays out the main circular building in connection with the smaller sphere of the planetarium and allows the existing conference center to act as a counterpoint in the overall massing. The plaza that connects them all is open and inviting, with olive trees providing a powerful symbol of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina underlying premise of peace, openness to the other, dialogue, rationality and understanding. The building's curve is covered on the outside with a beautiful gray granite wall that displays letters (not words) from the alphabets of some 120 languages. The complex is trans-pierced by an arrow: a slim, elegant pedestrian bridge at the second floor level, crossing from the University campus in the southeast towards the sea on the northwest.

The complex is open and inviting. The plaza is open to the corniche and is planted with olive trees, symbolizing the outstretched hand of peace... The southern part of the main building (from the Port Said street side) is elevated to allow an unimpeded view of the planetarium and the sea right across the project. The planetarium is a floating sphere with blue ribbons of light at night to highlight the special character of this major component of the composition.

From the plaza, there are three entrances to the complex. One for the Conference Center, which houses the great auditorium (1638 seats) and three smaller auditoriums below with a capacity of some 650 seats in different configurations, and two large exhibition areas, several cafeterias, and other ancillary meeting rooms and spaces. It is connected to the rest of the complex under the plaza. The conference center was an existing building and its architecture is very different from the new design,
which enveloped it and integrated its functions into its interconnected space.
The second entrance is down to the planetarium—a floating ball connected to the main plaza by four connecting “tunnels” or bridges. Next to it is the entrance to the Alexploratorium for children and an exhibition area. Around at the second level below the plaza is the space devoted to the History of Science Museum.

The third entrance is to the Library proper, the main new building in the complex to which much of this essay is devoted. The plaza itself has works of art and statuary. A soaring statue of “Prometheus bearing fire” is standing amidst the olive trees, and the colossus of Ptolemy II stands tall at the entrance on the Port Said street side.

Inside the vast circular structure, one can read the building fairly easily. A spine separates the vast reading space and library functions on one side from the administrative and research functions on the other.

The scale of the building is impressive. It is about 160 m in circumference, and 11 stories high, except that by slicing it across the top in a slant and burying 4 floors underground, the mass of the building is largely unnoticed. It is deceptively small on the outside, and invitingly human in scale when you approach it.

The role of water is pervasive. Water surrounds the whole building and provides both a reflecting motif from various angles, and a reflecting and separating medium for the main complex, creating a unique separateness and a hint of “floating” the building out of reach of the surroundings, other than the plaza entrance side.