The building was designed by the architect Dominique Perrault, chosen following an international competition in 1989, claims to both classical and minimalist aesthetics.
The library is organized around a base, the wide horizontal platform which is the Esplanade and four square-shaped glass towers placed at the four corners.
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These are home to seven floors of offices protected by mobile wooden shutters and eleven floors of stores
The Esplanade, covered with the Brazil IPE wood, hard and rot-proof, is accessed by large crevice facing the Seine River.
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The two entrances to the library are located to the West and East;
the East entry, became over time the most widely used due to its proximity with the station of the metro line 14, is reconfigured in 2013 to give it more visibility and bring comfort to the users.
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Book stores are located in part in the basement, in the immediate vicinity of the reading rooms, and partly in the upper floors of the towers.
An extensive network of eight kilometers allows the transport of documents in 330 trucks swing between stores and the research garden library reading rooms.
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Symmetry, clarity, thoroughness, balance, monumentality, such are the qualifiers that can define the architecture of the building, whose materials are glass, steel and wood.
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Interior tempered the austerity of the building exterior: concrete surfaces very fine grained starred light, mesh stainless steel soft and shimmering replacing walls and false ceilings, carpets of red hue Terre d'Afrique, exotic wood of the furniture of the reading rooms.
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Tables, shelving, ergonomic chairs or lamps to optical fiber, all of the furniture designed by the architect, shall establish to the reader an atmosphere of serenity conducive to intellectual work.
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