Unspecified/General

Four enormous glass towers shaped like open books rise around a sunken garden on the banks of the Seine, marking the Francois-Mitterrand site of the Bibliotheque nationale de France, the main building of the country's national library. Conceived as one of the grand presidential building projects of the late twentieth century and named after the president who launched it, the complex was designed by the architect Dominique Perrault and opened in 1996 in the redeveloped Tolbiac district in the southeast of Paris. The four L-shaped towers, evoking books standing on a shelf, frame a vast raised esplanade of timber decking, at the centre of which a hidden garden of mature pines, glimpsed but not entered, brings a slice of forest into the heart of the city. Beneath the esplanade lie the reading rooms and the bulk of the collections, arranged on two levels, one reserved for accredited researchers and one open to the general public on payment of a day pass. The library holds many millions of books, periodicals, manuscripts, maps, prints and digital resources, and stages regular exhibitions drawn from its treasures, which range from medieval manuscripts to photography and contemporary works. Its architecture provoked debate when it opened, both admired for its monumental ambition and criticised for storing books in glass towers, but it has settled into its role as a major cultural landmark. Reached by Metro and the riverside, close to the modern footbridge named after Simone de Beauvoir, it draws students, researchers and visitors alike. People come to study in its calm reading rooms, to see its exhibitions and to experience one of the boldest pieces of modern public architecture in Paris, a monument to learning on a deliberately grand scale. The upper-level reading rooms and exhibition spaces are open to all, while the lower research level requires a pass, so casual visitors should head for the public areas and the current shows. The esplanade itself, vast and breezy above the river, is free to walk and offers an unusual perspective on the modern city, making the library worth seeing for its architecture alone even without setting foot in a reading room.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Quai Francois Mauriac, Paris, France

Website: https://www.bnf.fr

Opening Date: 20/12/1996