Handing over the keys to the State Library's General Reading Room
Press release from 12/10/2012
Unter den Linden created the best structural conditions for users, valuable collections and librarians.
Today, the President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Hermann Parzinger, and the Director General of the Berlin State Library, Barbara Schneider-Kempf, receive the keys to the new General Reading Room and other new buildings at the Unter den Linden site from the architect HG Merz and the President of the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning, Rita Ruoff-Breuer. The centre of this building was lost 70 years ago due to bomb damage. Now Germany's largest academic universal library once again has modern, functional, representative rooms that do justice to its importance and at the same time offer the best working conditions for researchers from all over the world.
The Unter den Linden library building, opened in 1914, was badly damaged during the Second World War and the central domed reading room, which was hit by bombs, was never rebuilt. From 1992, the building was initially structurally secured and partially repaired. In 2000, Stuttgart architect HG Merz won the international architectural competition for the construction of new reading rooms and a vault magazine as well as the renovation of the 170 metre long, 107 metre wide and 13 storey high old building.
The extension and renovation work on this largest historical building complex in the centre of Berlin is being carried out in two phases. The federal government is fully financing this important construction project for the scientific and cultural landscape with a total of €406.5 million.
In the first construction phase from 2002 to 2012, new buildings were erected and the northern part of the library was renovated: A new general reading room, a rare books reading room, vault stacks and an open stacks were created. All new buildings were designed by HG Merz. With the parallel renovation of the old building surrounding the new buildings in the largest historical building complex in the centre of Berlin, extensive stacks, rooms for the library's workshops - digitisation, restoration and bookbinding work - as well as offices were created. The old and new buildings are fully air-conditioned.
In the second construction phase, the southern part of the old building will be renovated and also modernised, probably by 2015/16. This will reclaim additional storage space, offices and event rooms. During the second construction phase, the entrances to the reading rooms from Dorotheenstraße will be temporary and clearly marked by the lime green colour. When all the construction work is completed, a library museum will be set up on the ground floor, the temporary staircase to the lounge will then be removed and the area closed off.
A book transport system has been installed in the building for the first time and the first section is now in operation. At the end of the construction work, the books will be transported over a length of 1,500 metres via 17 linear and 4 circulating trains.
The new centre of the building is the general reading room. Merz designed a cube - 36 metres high, 35 metres wide and 30 metres long from ground level - whose thermally deformed glass is translucent and pleasantly diffuses the light. Of the 250 workstations, 160 are designed with lockable containers or as lockable cubicles. The adjacent Rara reading room, a reading room for particularly valuable and rare prints, is equipped with 48 workstations. Below the General Reading Room are two newly built floors of vault storage, where Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Mozart's Magic Flute and Bach's Christmas Oratorio - all originals by the masters - will soon be housed under the best climatic conditions. After receiving the keys to the newly constructed parts of the building, the clearing work will begin for the start of library operations in mid-March 2013.
The Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz is the largest academic universal library in Germany. At two locations in the centre of Berlin, it offers services for academia and maintains and adds to extensive holdings, many of which are unique national and world cultural heritage items. The locations are clearly profiled for on-site use: The library building in the Kulturforum / Potsdamer Straße, built in 1978 according to plans by Hans Scharoun - an icon of architecture - is developing into a modern research library. The reading rooms that have now been handed over form the Historical Research Library with its holdings.