Libraries store the energy that fuels the imagination. They open up windows to the world and inspire us to explore and achieve, and contribute to improving our quality of life.
Sidney Sheldon
What is it that we find so fascinating about libraries? Could it be the enchanting world that our own imagination is able to create while scrolling through the pages of a book? Or is it about freedom? “Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication. They are about education, about entertainment, about making safe spaces, and about access to information”, as Neil Gaiman says for the Reading Agency. The National Library of Latvia, also known as The Castle Of Light, first founded in 1919, opened in August 2014 as designed by one of America’s greatest Latvia born architects – Gunnar Birkerts. Set in a remarkable triangular architecture, it is home to more than 5 million books and manuscripts and is open to the public for on-site research as well as a tourist attraction. Prominent cultural and major events of the city are also hosted here at regular time intervals. (cityseeker.com) A glimpse inside the National Library Of Latvia will reveal a selection of themed reading rooms, interactive story books, audio/video recordings, and rare publications.
The library presents itself as a national landmark, providing access to all Latvian digital and analogue publications, including a Cabinet of Folksongs, part of the UNESCO Memory of the World Program. Situated across Riga’s Old Town, its main task is to create and preserve the collection of national and world literature and ensure its free access to everyone.
According to Design Curial, Gunnar Birkerts was born in Riga to parents who studied Latvia’s culture and folklore and made his first architectural drawing in 1942 when he was 17. Gunnar won the first of numerous awards in 1954 and from there he maintained a continuous output of furniture design, a field in which he was awarded a 1956 prize in Italy. The National Library of Latvia wasn’t his only renown creation – he worked on General Motors Technical Centre at Warren, Michigan, on Saarinen’s extraordinary raised brutalist volumes of the War Memorial Building in Milwaukee and he put his mark on Saudi Arabia’s Dhahran Airport before becoming a professor at the University of Michigan.
The main roles of the National Library Of Latvia is to promote the national documentary heritage, to ensure the preservation of its entire collection of publications, while cooperating with different memory institutions on a national and international level. Inside the National Library Of Latvia, this modern and innovative, world-class information and cultural centre provides space for more than 1,000 readers, serving over 3,000 visitors a day.
Embracing exhibitions of books and manuscripts, as well as many other significant works from ancient and medieval times, the library is referred to as “The Castle Of Light”. Gunnar explains “the magic cultural ingredient was found in the fable about a sleeping princess atop a mountain of glass, whose smooth surface defeats would-be suitors attempting to scale it to reach her. It’s something he recalls that Latvian schoolchildren were taught, and the metaphor here is that the sleeping princess is freedom.”
Periodicals, posters, manuscripts, maps, music in a century of formats and more, are in the national collection, currently spread across six locations prior to the completion of this building embodying myth, physically anticipating the future, and creating wonder, as Herbert Wright describes it. It’s mission? To promote a free and inventive usage of the national cultural and scientific heritage so as to foster education, research, the development of knowledge and the quality of life, and also ensuring both data organization and quality control on a national level.
With the exception of the curtain wall, the library was largely constructed with local materials. Offices are arrayed along the south elevation and protected by sunscreens, while north-facing reading rooms are bathed in natural light. The library’s form dovetails with functionality by accommodating the various collections areas. Presented in vertical arrays in appropriately sized spaces, they all connect to the central stack core. A full wall display of books donated by Latvians as a symbolic gesture soars through the atrium and teases the massive adjacent stack area. The atrium itself, with its central stair, provides connectivity to all the public levels and serves as a unifying element that illustrates the library’s logical organization and circulation. (details provided by Architect Magazine)
The National Library Of Latvia is described as one of the most complex buildings to be constructed in the country, shaped as a modern and innovative world-class cultural space. Apart from the multiple reading rooms available, there are also multiple spaces designed for children, such as the Children’s Literature Centre which provides a platform for discussing digital materials, animations, illustrator workshops, alphabet games, a “Storytellers chair”, a picture book theatre, and other interactive exhibitions. More details can be found here.
Inside the National Library Of Latvia, you have free access to 350.000 publications, a concert hall, a conference centre, 10 group study rooms, the opportunity to watch 35 mm motion picture films, a 360° panorama observation deck and much more.
To gain some insight into Latvia’s culture, click here.
