The National Library of Luxembourg was given a new building by the Münster-based architecture firm Bolles+Wilson. In the more than 15 years between competition and completion, the building has come a long way – literally. When the new Münster City Library building by Julia Bolles and Peter Wilson was inaugurated in 1993, the press response to the young firm’s design was […]
The National Library of Luxembourg was given a new building by the Münster-based architecture firm Bolles+Wilson. In the more than 15 years between the competition and completion, the building has come a long way – literally.
When the new Münster City Library building by Julia Bolles and Peter Wilson was inaugurated in 1993, the press response to the young firm’s design was enthusiastic. The two architects had won the competition six years earlier with a proposal that set a completely new tone in Münster’s city center. Unlike in many other German cities, the decision had been made in Münster after the war to rebuild the largely destroyed city center in the style of the pre-war cityscape. The new library, on the other hand, lacked anything historical. Nevertheless, it was cleverly integrated into the existing collection.
Although Bolles and Wilson took up the small-scale nature of the old town in their design, they found a language in form and materiality that was previously unknown in Germany. The large form has clear sculptural features, without borrowing from the Brutalism of the 1970s, for example. The architects divided the building into two parts with an alleyway, so that passers-by virtually walk through the reading room. The library becomes a living part of the urban fabric.
Atmospheric watercolor sketches. Drawings: © BOLLES+WILSON
Bolles+Wilson has now been in existence for over 40 years, 32 of them in Münster, where the office moved in 1989. Julia Bolles and Peter Wilson both taught at various universities for many years. Time and again, their office was also able to realize important projects abroad. Nevertheless, they never wanted or were able to join the circle of major German offices. In essence, they remain a little like the office location of Münster: a self-confident province that has no need to look to Berlin, Cologne or Düsseldorf.
With the completion of the National Library of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, more than 25 years after the Münster City Library, Bolles and Wilson have once again put forward their ideas for this building project. The long gap in time is somewhat deceptive, as the office won the competition for the project back in 2003. However, when the building was realized in 2014, hardly anything was the same as in the original design. One thing in particular was no longer the same, namely the building site.
The architects had originally planned to convert an existing building: The National Library was to move from a dilapidated building in the city center to the Robert Schuman Building. The complex from the early 1970s was the first seat of the European Parliament. It is located directly next to the Philharmonie by Christian de Portzamparc, which was inaugurated in 2005, and the Museum of Contemporary Art MUDAM by Ieoh Ming Pei, which opened in 2006. This would have created a remarkable cultural forum on the Kirchberg plateau opposite Luxembourg’s old town. However, the conversion project proved to be difficult and in 2009 the Luxembourg Parliament decided that the National Library should be given a completely new building just two kilometers further out of town.
The “European” Luxembourg with its banks and EU institutions stretches along Avenue Kennedy between the old and new locations. Big names in modern architecture have left their mark here. Opposite the National Library, for example, is Gottfried Böhm’s Deutsche Bank representative office, completed in 1991. The new Luxembourg streetcar has been serving the Kirchberg Plateau since 2017. Thanks to the line along Avenue Kennedy, the library site is well connected to the city center.
Despite the different building site, Bolles and Wilson were essentially able to retain the basic concept of their design. They placed the foyer of the National Library at the lowest point of the building site on Avenue Kennedy. At the opposite end, near the ridge of the Kirchberg, is the book stacks. The architects have planned it as a five-storey, enclosed concrete cube. The reading room extends between the foyer and the stacks. Several stepped gallery floors lead from the level of the foyer to the “roof” of the magazine cube. There is a large reading level. The architects covered the entire large-scale “reading landscape” with an enormous wooden roof. Large triangular skylights illuminate the hall. Administration and special reading rooms enclose it at the sides.
The exterior of the library is dominated by large-format slabs of red, solid-colored concrete, which the architects used to clad their building. The surfaces of the slabs were treated differently. The result is a play of colors reminiscent of red sandstone. In contrast, Bolles and Wilson used white for the window bands and the entrance area, which looks as if it has been cut into the building.
The most beautiful element of the façade is the small “tower” with which the architects emphasize the street corner between Avenue Kennedy and Boulevard Adenauer. It gives the library an almost picturesque appearance. In contrast, the repeated triangles in and around the building appear somewhat mannered.
The main aim of the project was to develop a sustainable library. The floor space under the first floor slab is designed as a first floor cold store. A photovoltaic system is installed on the roof. There is also a controlled night cooling system. Wherever possible, the architects took into account the requirements of circularity in the materials used. The large wooden roof that spans the reading room is emblematic of Bolles and Wilson’s aspiration to develop sustainable architecture.
Will the National Library of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg be as big a success for Bolles and Wilson as the much smaller municipal library in Münster? Probably not. This is not necessarily due to the quality of their design. Rather, it has to do with the fact that the site on which they were finally able to erect their building lacks a little charm. The charm that the originally planned location opposite Luxembourg’s old town would have had. Or the charm of Münster’s city center with its sandstone-yellow gabled houses, against which Bolles and Wilson’s quarter-century-old library sculpture still forms an exciting contrast.
Still not enough of the theme? The architects at Korteknie Stuhlmacher have transformed a former monastery into a beautiful library.
