20 DIGS.NET | 5.19.23
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R E S T O R AT I O N | B R U N O G A U D I N A R C H I T E C T E S
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new light-amplifying circulations and, in
a dazzling example, a glazed conduit
linking the library to an adjacent museum.
Throughout is a sense of openness and
expanse that guided this ship first to sea,
then to shore.
Based on a program resulting from a
painstaking research process involving
studies, discovery, and manpower to bring
order and coherence to a set of randomly
organized parts, Bruno Gaudin Architectes
wrapped its work on the National Library
of France in 2022, having liberated the
building from constriction with interventions
designed to give it a sparkling new chapter.
"Yesterday, closed in on itself," the practice
reflects, "the large, magnificent, worn,
fragmented, dark and dilapidated treasure
chest has now been given a new identity, full
of light." A new history will be written.
bruno-gaudin.fr
the world's most opulent vault. That the
space itself was built over four decades is
not surprising when one reads the room:
soaring slender columns, ornately detailed
arches, and stacks spanning four stories.
It's a showpiece, rightly hyped as the "Oval
Paradise" and clearing that impossibly high
bar with aplomb. Above it all, the Oval's
dramatic glass dome showers the space
in an almost ecclesiastical glow apropos of
Paris' literary pilgrims.
Any contemporary interpretation of Beaux-
Arts decadence needs balance to lighten
the opulent load. Here it is glass, used
liberally. The first "desire for connection
and transparency," the practice points out,
"comes on the ground floor, at the entrance
on the rue Vivienne. "It is expressed in
the façade by the transformation of three
existing windows into high doors opening
onto the garden." And it continues with
