Architects' statement No longer is the library type instantly recognizable as a main hall or gigantic warehouse or container of books: it is a sum total of the varied services which tend increasingly to be external to it.
How can we make such a building meaningful as a civic, public institution?
The library at Usera enjoys a privileged position with magnificent views over west Madrid, sited in the middle of donated land, with the Municipal Government Building as a neighbor. An immediate temptation is to reduce the scale of the intervention by exploiting the steepness of the terrain and opting for a terraced or semi-buried solution. But this serves neither the views nor the public character of a library, nor, above all, the equilibrium of the whole site, which would tend to remain polarized around the Municipal Government Building, discouraging the investment, both political and economic, that the library's construction entails.
Given this, what should the image and organization of a contemporary library here be? How can we best use the terrain and gain most advantage from its topographical qualities? Our design endeavors to answer these the two questions definitively, and to achieve this with maximum economy and also a special appetite for the emotion that simplification produces.
The library is made up of a number of medium sized, autonomous elements of equal importance. Since the building occupies a location where the scenic and institutional aspects both have weight, it is reasonable to consider a vertical organization that opens up possibilities in functional terms - by minimizing cores and circulation, simplifying the construction, offering the potential for visual connections between floors but also figuratively registers as a central element of the urban block.
Defined as a medium-sized tower, the library is able to act as a catalyst that reorganizes this space for community activity by giving it urban centrality and meaning, linking to the adjoining parkland, resolving the fall across the site, and providing a landscaped and paved setting. The neighboring Municipal Government Building which had formerly appeared isolated and strange is engaged as part of a civic complex that possesses greater significance and scale.
The magnificent views of west Madrid and the hillside on which the site is located invite us to imagine that a classical and mythical form of learning, the tower with Madrilenian proportions if necessary-is especially fitting here. And the design develops this proposal, in the conviction that it is an extremely efficient and also an exceptional form.
Access and circulation systems The entrance hall concentrates the management of people and objects in a single space. It needs to prepare the users' state of mind and to concisely explicate the building's organization, both horizontal and vertical. Its constitution as a void in section, plus the location and transparency of the lifts and stairways, allow for clear and immediate spatial orientation; and these elements take up a minimum surface area: vertically is relied on as an expressive factor.
The public vertical circulation systems and the installation ducts and bathrooms form a single core that includes the emergency exits and loading/unloading areas. Backing onto this core are the more active uses -offices, index consulting room, available stocks, etc - reserving the open plan floors for study and silent reading.
The lifts are a key element in the functioning of the tower and in the spatial experience produced in users of the building. For this reason, from the slowly rising lifts (picking up on Palacios' idea in his Gran Via building), 'panning shots' are envisaged, taking in the interiors at a processional speed of ascension that replaces a more complex and costly architectural promenade. Atmospheric quality
The reading areas are modeled on all those rooms in which the intimate activity of reading is favored by the sizing of the space, generous but never monumental, and by a special atmospheric density. We are thinking of the grand cafes in old casinos, clubs and cultural centers, of spaces with almost no architectural presence, in which the transparency and simplicity of the Layout are not at variance with a welcoming gravity and darkness that permit one to concentrate all attention on one's own individual activity, leaving a background role to the play of natural and artificial light and the furniture. In order to attain this effect, the light penetrates the room via a system of double vertical apertures with sunlight diffusers, a main aperture being opened in each room which is strategically oriented towards the views and protected by sunshades formed by pivoting fascia panels.
At no moment is the building's structure apparent, and the alternation of apertures helps create a certain weightlessness. A mysterious, non-dazzling illumination is sought, and hence the apertures are scarce; and the interior wall surfaces, ‘papered’ with Seri graphed reproductions of diff classical texts, tend to be achieve the desired ambience, Everything the configuration of apertures, the finishes and colors contributes to this dense and weightless effect. Construction system All the constructional elements tend to do away with complexity and material presence, forming a self-contained, elementary system of execution. Hollow slabs, using the production method developed by the engineer, Mariano Moneo, and an enclosure of lightweight panels that incorporates concealed steel perimeter columns, make up the basic constructional system, whose base module is 7.2 meters and its sub-modules 90 or 60 centimeters. The presence of supports is . largely diminished, leaving a number of structural spans perfectly suited to the typology (14.4 meters). The system is completed with an elementary core of stairways, ducts, bathrooms and lifts.
The total height of 28 meters accommodates conventional services in accordance with municipal safety requirements, without the building being affected by special fire or other regulations. Servicing is accommodated in vertical service ducts in the core, and in horizontal air spaces in the slabs, with diffuses, detectors and lighting set into the concrete. The finishes are restricted to the building materials themselves, concrete floor and bare slabs, leaving the main expressive role to the furniture, which will be freely distributed thanks to the interior transparency achieved.
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