Europe’s most innovative library has a rooftop botanical garden

stands on The rooftop garden of Warsaw University Library (Biblioteka Uniwersytecka w Warszawie) feels like you are at the center of the universe, or at least in Poland. From its perch, you can see the tower of the Palace of Culture and Science, the adjacent Copernicus Science Center, the basket-like PGE Narodowy Stadium, and the banks of the Vistula River. Below, it can be seen through the large arched windows, and it is also easy to see the students sitting in the study rooms below, surrounded by piles of books.

There is an inherent appeal to library tourism – seeing the places where nations preserve their collective knowledge and histories. Warsaw University Library is a particularly rich stop. While this intellectual center stood on Dobra (“Good”) Street for only 26 years, the library has remained a long-standing symbol of the city’s fight for knowledge. Since its founding in 1816, it has survived two world wars, the November Uprising of 1830, and communism. At a time when books and knowledge are once again under threat, both in the United States and abroad, this is also a reminder of the wealth of knowledge that can be lost in the digital age.

The building deviates significantly from the Soviet-style architecture that defined much of the city’s character. As librarian Liliana Nalawska explains, its exterior, featuring a candy-colored pink grille from the library’s previous excavations (a symbolic link between past and present), and a green façade with book-like inscriptions from Plato, the Polish poet Jan Kochanowski, and various other classics, is a tribute to what’s inside. . It is especially meaningful when you consider the building’s construction date in 1999, just eight years after the fall of communism, when many of these works were banned from public access.

“The idea of ​​the architects of this place, Marek Budziński and Zbigniew Badowski, was that it should show that this is an important place for humanity,” says Naliwaśka. “But here you will find text taken from different cultures and different situations. It is through the books that visitors come to light.

Made of glass and steel, the building is a simple construction, designed to make the most of light on short winter days. Large green beams arch across the glass roof, creating a metallic canopy reminiscent of a forest. In 2002, the Polish Minister of Infrastructure awarded the library “for its outstanding digital qualities.”

As Naliwaska notes, the symbolism of the entrance extends throughout the entire building, particularly in the statues of Demosthenes and Sophocles, which stand on columns flanking the entrance.