The newly crowned Pritzker Prize winners RCR Arquitectes have completed a city library in Ghent – which makes you curious. Together with the Belgian firm Cossée & Goris, they won first prize in the international competition for the De Krook library in 2010.
Of course, one wonders whether libraries are still needed at all in our digital age. In 2010, the Belgian city of Ghent answered this question with a resounding yes. To this end, an unused, striking urban site on a bend in the river in the middle of the city was selected and a competition launched. Among the large number of submissions, including Toyo Ito, Aires Mateus and 97 other firms, the joint design by Spanish architecture firm RCR Arquitectes and Belgian firm Coussée & Goris Architecten won out. The two firms had completed an impressive crematorium building together in the Belgian town of Hofheide in 2015.
In Ghent, the jury justified its choice with the right balance between “noise and silence, relaxation and concentration, dynamism and steadfastness”. De Krook City Library, whose name “Krook” is derived from the Dutch word “kreuk” – meaning fold – and refers to the sharp bend in the adjacent river “Scheldt”, was opened in March of this year: It truly impresses with its evocative approach to the waterside location – it inspired the architects to create a transparent steel structure that references the adjacent, flowing waters with filigree, horizontal façade elements in long lines, reminiscent of the dynamics of a ship’s shape. With the competition brief, the city of Ghent not only invited tenders for a library, but also for a new approach to the building task. While libraries in the past served as a sacred place of knowledge, the storage of books and magazines, the functions of this building were to be expanded: By presenting knowledge in different forms and media – including symposia, changing exhibitions, debates and participatory research – the aim was to reach a wider audience. Above all, it was important to the developers to attract more users.
Read more in Baumeister 7/2017
