Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 4 views

    THE BIBLIOTHECA ALEXANDRINA

    Uploaded by

    Christopher Balogun

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    THE BIBLIOTHECA ALEXANDRINA

    Uploaded by

    Christopher Balogun
    4 views3 pages

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    4 views3 pages

    THE BIBLIOTHECA ALEXANDRINA

    Uploaded by

    Christopher Balogun

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    You are on page 1of 3

    THE BIBLIOTHECA ALEXANDRINA

    The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is a major library and cultural center on the shore of the
    Mediterranean Sea in Alexandria, Egypt, that took its inspiration from the Library of Alexandria
    of Classical times. In addition, the library houses a planetarium, a school of library and
    information science, facilities for the digital preservation of rare books and manuscripts, and a
    conference center. The idea of reviving the ancient library was first proposed in 1972 by
    Mostafa El-Abbadi, a professor at Alexandria University. The Egyptian government decided to
    sponsor the project, and it received international publicity and support through UNESCO.
    INFO:
    Architects: Craig Edward Dykers, Kjetil Thorsen, Christoph Kapeller, Øyvind Mo
    Architectural style: Contemporary architecture
    Construction Period: 1995 to 2001
    Opened: 2002
    Budget: $200 million
    Construction started: 1995
    Director: Ahmed Abdullah Zayed
    INTERESTING FACTS:
    The complex was officially opened on October 16, 2002.
    The library was designed to house eight million volumes (books, researches and manuscript)
    on seven cascading levels. The collection is shelved so that the oldest materials occupy the
    lowest level, forming a metaphoric foundation for later works.

    The library’s interior.

    ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES:
     The library is a massive cylinder emerging from the ground at a shallow angle only
    about 130 feet (40m) from the Mediterranean Sea.
     The library appears to be a wedge-like shape due to its appearance of a disc-shaped
    volume tilted to the water.
     The library has 11 floors and a total height of 43m.
     It has a 80,000 square meters floor area and a total diameter of 160m.
     The disk-shaped roof suggests the sun rising over the Mediterranean, and the roof
    pattern of aluminum and glass panels resembles a microchip.
     One outer wall of the structure is made up of some 6,400 granite panels bearing
    characters from all the known alphabets.

    You might also like