The University Library in Warsaw – Symbols and Climates

Abstract

The competition design for the library originated in 1993 in the fourth year of the new Poland. A time of hope, muddle, and confusion between the new and the old. For me these were years when I felt a strong urge to seek a new way of relating to the reality of the times, to formulate and declare my beliefs, and it was a time of a straightforward fight for survival. In general I try to follow a direction of what we call sustained development. The atmosphere of space and the symbolism of forms of the library are a result not only of this imperative, but also a fascination of the team of designers by the idea of the University to have a library which links free access to books with formal access via a catalogue and librarians, together with the possibility of accessing information form foreign university library collections by computer. Equally exciting for us was the way the procurement of the project was financed, and associated with this the connection of the space occupied by the library with commercial space.