New Architecture in Germany

The Humboldt brothers envisioned the totality and unity of the arts and sciences as their ideal. Christoph Markschies, the president of Berlin’s Humboldt University, now sees that ideal realized in the consolidation of the humanities libraries at his alma mater.

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^{Concept/Editing: Andreas Christoph Schmidt, Camera: Lutz Reimann, Schmidt & Paetzel Fernsehfilme GmbH commissioned by the Goethe-Institut, 2010}

“Say I’m studying Homer: well I can read it in the original here, study Renaissance criticism of Homer next door and contemporary criticism one floor up, without having to change to other department libraries.”

These tidings of a new library building may be surprising and even seem anachronistic, what with libraries in the throes of the biggest upheaval in their history. For there is no stopping the ongoing transfer of information onto the Web, a process that clearly raises questions about conventional libraries with their catalogues, their lending services, and their reading rooms replete with non-lending reference collections.

Study desks and workstations in grand style

That is why the new Humboldt Central Library is bound to be the last big new library building in Berlin fitted out with study desks and workstations in grand style.
For a whole century, Humboldt University had to sublet space from the Unter den Linden State Library for its hoard of books. Now, at long last, it can move into this stately new building, ideally located right by the light-rail viaduct in the immediate vicinity of the university campus.

The Swiss architect Max Dudler won the 2004 competition for the design of the new edifice, which is named after the Germanists and linguists (and fairy-tale collectors par excellence, of course) Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Dudler proposed a 10-storey cubic complex that would tower far above the Berlin skyline along the suburban railway, but whose low-rise components would fit right in with the architectural environs.

Holistic design

The building’s exterior shows nothing but a Spartan wall of natural stone: the facing is made of a yellowish, Travertine-like limestone called Juramarmor with precisely cut apertures. The high rectangular windows of three different widths form a seemingly endless gridwork along the façades. This is the abstract form of an exterior wall that is interspersed with windows but manages to do without any details, divides, ledges or window frames. The reason one’s gaze does not simply glide listlessly along the monotonous matrix is the rhythmic spacing of the varying sizes of the windows. Behind the slender slits lie the stacks, whose contents are better preserved if shielded from the full glare of daylight. The wider windows illuminate the reading areas, and the very widest ones provide plenty of natural light for the special-purpose areas of the library.

The interior decoration fits in with the architecture to yield an aesthetic whole. The walls, bookcases, study desks and seating clusters take their cue from the big grid of the building as a whole. The desks are exactly as wide as the gaps between the windows, the sitting areas as wide as the windows themselves. So from all the workstations you have an unobstructed view of the hall, the surroundings, the streets or the rooftops of the city.

Enchanting atmosphere in the main reading room

The functional hub and “soul” of the building is the grand reading room with its 252 study desks. Shielded from the noise of the street and railway, this imposing skylighted atrium extends in terraces from the ground floor up to the fourth storey.

The terraces are associated with the various departments of the multi-storey open-access library. In addition to the absolutely enchanting main reading room, there are group study rooms and 54 remarkably spacious cubicles. All told, there are over a thousand workstations, the rest of which are distributed throughout the complex.

The family area on the seventh floor is fitted out with a playroom and children’s library to keep the kids busy so their parents can study undisturbed. The limestone floors and the American cherrywood trimwork and veneered wall panelling, as well as the painstakingly and impeccably crafted details, are of an astoundingly high standard – and were executed on a €75 million budget without any overruns. So it’s no wonder library director Milan Bulaty raves about the beauty of his building. The word beauty is so seldom used in connection with contemporary architecture.