This project replaces (in uncertain future) the extraordinary National Library by Clorindo Testa, who actually saw the main perspective around 1995, during a wonderful afternoon in his studio in Avenida Callao, Buenos Aires. After pointing that the strange form reminded him of some curious coloured liquids he keeps in four or five glass pods, he immediately liked the idea: having a Library in the middle of the Pampas. It could act as the Centre of a New Argentina, literally based on knowledge, like the one Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (and the generation of 1880) imagined and successfully started to build, dream that became real and transformed Argentina in a leading world power by 1920. A self-destructive attitude provoked by the elite -from all classes- (claiming feudal privileges in the 20th Century), almost brings the country into decadence. But we have survived, and this Library is an homage to the Great Argentina that exports -like a few countries- hundred of thousands of professionals, educators, high level researchers that gained international recognition and won many Nobel Prizes. The Porteño* is legitimately Romantic and therefore deeply European (from the continental Europe that created Modernism, not the actual one, surrendered to the Anglo-capitalism) so then a convinced defender of the world of libraries and bookshops. This project is dedicated to the eternal existence of readers and their simple, beautiful irreplaceable books. The main body holds the Library itself within a vertical structure. The books are kept in the middle of the inner space and surrounded by comfortable reading areas in different shapes and colours. The other body contains technical support systems. The bubble-shape building holds a 1.000 seats Auditorium. The large concrete structure is wrapped by a "changing" skin made of a stainless steel and covered by wood and organic stuff: the building need neither artificial light nor external energy.   EN   ES

architect: POUCHULU / project: 1995 /area: 29.100 sqm / location: Buenos Aires / Copyright © Patricio Pouchulu Architect 2001