BIBLIOTECA VASCONCELOS
The admirable building designed in 2007 by mexican architect Alberto Kalach, who with the premise to make a great “coffer of the immersed knowledge” in a beautiful garden, reunited elements like the steel, concrete, marble, wood and glass so that they sheltered the bibliographical heap of than 580 thousand books placed more in an impressive hanging bookcase, 44.000 m2 constructed area becomes it the greater library of Latin America.
Mexico integrates the public library of Mexico with a botanical garden in comparison with the bare enviroment of the city. It is a 250 meter steel, concrete, marble, granite, wood and glass structure surrounded by greenery and water.
The functioning of the library as a library starts from a clear division of space. the building consists of three levels above the ground floor and the underground parking. Horizontally the nave is divided into three parts by two service cores that coincide with the constructive joints, resulting in six sections which, added to those at the head of the structure, generate the ten principal areas demanded by the library science program.
The ground floor opens up as a processional space: it begins with a great lobby and unfolds beneath the levels of the library. It constitutes a level of interchange between
the controlled areas of the library and those with free access, and is flanked by the general, cultural, and special services of the complex, including a museum, gallery, gift
shop, post office, and an e-Mexico cell as well as meeting rooms and administrative offices. The interior street end at the 500-seat auditorium and the informal reading area, which communicates with an open-air forum, the garden, greenhouse, and cafeteria.
In the main ship of the enclosure is Mobile Mátrix, work of the plastic artist Gabriel Orozco, who transformed a bony structure of a whale of thousand 696 kilos into a unique piece of art and that has become the icon of the place.
