Dalibor Veselý: "The National Library can gain a different dimension"

Again on the topic of the Czech National Library
- interview with Prof. Dalibor Veselý
- interview with Mgr. Antonín Vítek

Library for the 3rd millennium
- introduction
- interview with Mgr. Jan Pačes, PhD. (1967)
- interview with Mgr. Antonín Vítek, CSc. (1940)
- interview with PhDr. Zdeněk Vašíček (1933)
- interview with Prof. Dalibor Veselý (1934)

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During the time of the architect competition discussed today, Archiweb approached four library users: Professor of Architecture Dalibor Veselý, library expert Dalibor Vítek, researcher Dalibor Pačes, and writer Zdeněk Vašíček. We return to the interviews with two of these representatives of the public (Prof. Veselý and D. Vítek) with the theme: What has not been sufficiently discussed in the current public debate...
We publish the interviews with the awareness that, according to some opinions, all controversies are unnecessary, as the winner of the competition violated key, binding conditions and the jury erred when allowing his proposal into the first round.

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In our first interview about the National Library, you emphasized the concept of "situatedness" several times. Let us return more thoroughly to the question of how you actually perceive the situation of the National Library in Letná?
It is a topic that - as far as I know - does not appear very often in the current Prague discussion. However, the location of the National Library is absolutely fundamental. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the establishment of the Czech National Library in the Letná space is problematic. Primarily: the building will be far from all universities. Charles University is on the other side of the river, and the Technical University, which is on the same side of the city, is building its own library… In this regard, in my opinion, the Klementinum is significantly better located. That does not mean that the library in Letná could not inspire the emergence of other functions around it. But do we have hope that a segment of the city, which is so important for the library, will grow here in the future? Will it be more than just an isolated object next to the residential area of the city?

A bad example could likely be the recent new building of Biblioteque Nationale in Paris…
Its isolated location remains the main problem. The location of the original library offered proximity to other libraries and, above all, there was an existing city around it: Paris, where people live, Paris, where students have opportunities beyond just visiting the library. The French National Library was anchored by its original location as a solid part of intellectual Parisian life.
By the way, in this context, the location of the British Library in London can be seen as more fortunate: it stands across the street from London University. It is also close to theaters and other city institutions, including stations and public transport stops.

If I return in this sense to your concept of situatedness: society seems to be trying to orient the symbolism of education to certain places in urban space. Can we deduce anything from situating such an important object outside the metropolitan epicenter? Perhaps this situation also tells us something about social priorities...
The location of the library outside the metropolitan epicenter certainly represents a certain limitation. Not necessarily an architectural limitation, but a social limitation, if you will, a national one… It would be interesting to trace where library objects are located in Europe. That is to say, in terms of significance comparable…
The Prague situation seems to me an attempt to imitate the aforementioned Mitterrand period in Paris: when it was about the so-called Great Projects. Since it is a gesture, prestige, and visible originality, and it also involves a time constraint, to have the project completed as soon as possible - before I die, it often results in a complex urban building becoming just an isolated object. However, successful institutions or cities cannot be built this way - by one-off decisions.

In Prague, we are also not standing in front of a regular library, but in front of the institution of the Czech National Library.
Opening this topic with all seriousness would lead us in the discussion about its location and quality of architecture to the category of debates comparable to those about the location and character of the National Gallery or the Old Town Hall. It is no longer just an institution as such: the library in such a concept becomes a monument, a memorial, and also a symbolic national building. These associations paradoxically point back to 19th-century thinking.

LIBRARY & ARCHITECTURAL SENSITIVITY

And what about internal situatedness? Can we perceive a transformation that today's library has undergone?
The library of the 21st century is becoming more a part of complexes of institutions. The library, after all, primarily serves and only afterwards represents something additional in itself, including being a part of national awareness, etc. This corresponds to the tendency not to perceive the library as a standalone object or monument that is always isolated by its nature. The irony lies in the fact that consideration is given to establishing the library and only thereafter is a way to integrate it into urban life sought. Similarly, today’s museums desperately strive, without much success, to get into the dimensions of contemporary relevance, so they can be something more than just isolated monuments, etc.

Let me return to your mention of today's "library complex." What does this shift represent for architectural solutions?
The National Library does not merely mean studying or borrowing books, but it is also an archive with maps, drawings, engravings; the library also offers space for exhibitions, concerts, lectures, etc., etc. Therefore, the urban integration of the library indirectly connects with the further topic of hierarchizing internal spaces. Specifically, it concerns the separation of specialized places, which may, for example, be located on various upper floors or on the periphery of the library so that they are accessible from the outside for various services or events, even beyond the basic library life. By the way, Klementinum fulfills this role ideally as well. The mentioned complexity of the library can take place around variously sized and situated spaces, and this better and more successfully than in a monoblock. After all, when we talk about library space, i.e., about individual space for study, I prefer to think in plural: it is about spaces. The overall quality does not begin and end with a single place, board, or table where work is done, but also about areas of how and where one arrives or enters, where copying resources are available, where books are received and issued, etc. Compare, for example, the map department and next to it the rare books department. One requires the size of two or three tables, the other the size of one table… You also need various intensities of lighting: both in terms of amount and also in directional aspects towards cardinal points, etc., etc. All this represents contexts that create a specific library metabolism. In other words, a real, organized, and articulated life of the library.
The British Library, whatever we think of it, provides a successful solution precisely because of its sensitivity to differentiating scales, to distinguishing types of spaces in which studying occurs, including the distinction between humanities and technical fields. In summary, it is about architectural sensitivity to orientation, configuration, and the resulting character of the workspace.

As if you were indirectly pointing to the fact that the discussion in Prague focuses too unilaterally on the library as a visible whole.
However, from a bird's-eye view, the National Library actually contains several libraries. And each with different numbers of visitors, with different interests or working characteristics, with different spatial requirements. I have just illustrated a small portion of what today’s library actually represents - in its everyday use.

It can be assumed that the authors of the construction program for the National Library are well aware of these specifics of library life…
As I suggested, I personally find it problematic that, with such a complex library, we ultimately stand before basically a volumetric solution. In monologic, megastructural thinking, many options are excluded. It is problematic to respond, for example, to the lighting conditions that have already been mentioned as well as to the functional and visible differentiation of various spaces... Differentiation can be achieved by various means and not only by dividing the interior into larger or smaller spaces.

Can you give an example?
An example might be solutions where the library complex already contains possibilities for distinguishing or differentiable situating of individual parts of the library. In a more complex solution, such possibilities are opened.
For instance, parts of the library can be organized to allow direct access to where we’re headed. The rest of the object can be ignored and taken into account only if it is important for the work character at a particular place. I do not have to consider a huge Babylon and a vast megastructure as the only best solution, which opens many options but only partially and superficially.
I speak about this because it is often forgotten that producing a new form of anything is not difficult at all. The formal possibilities are open, not to mention today’s possibilities for representation… New libraries are commonly conceived by students in the first and second year. Only when we look into the interior do questions begin to arise.
And comparisons can also be made since cities and institutions have been trying to build their libraries for several hundred years. So, when you go to Cambridge, you can find not only a very old library that still serves quite well but also a new library by Foster, which, in my opinion, is almost unusable. It is a greenhouse that is difficult to access, there are spaces where noise abounds and where you cannot concentrate, it’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. But mainly it represents an environment completely unsuitable for concentrated work. It exemplifies how the primary function of the library has essentially been dismissed in favor of expression, i.e., contemporary architectural physiognomy. Similar problems were present in Cambridge with Stirling’s library with the glass reading room in the middle. In the end, students borrow a book and prefer to study at home or in the dorm…

LIBRARY & WORKPLACE

Allow me a digression. You studied in Prague and later in Britain. Which libraries did you visit most often?
First the library at the AVU and then, when I studied art history, I went to the law faculty and to the Umprum museum library. In England, at first, I frequented the British Museum library most often.

What primarily influenced your choice?
One hardly ever has the opportunity to go to the library and stay there until the evening. On the contrary, it is characteristic for a university student to have "windows" between lectures that you can use: you decide whether to go for a beer or to the library. And at this moment, the topic of accessibility arises. Just like when you work at home and suddenly need a reference that is not "around the corner," but you have it in your library in the next room. If it were truly "around the corner," you might well let some references slide…
So, for example, visiting the Klementinum or the Academic Library on Národní Street had to be planned. When I went there, it was probably for half a day. The Umprumka was closer to me in this regard, not to mention that even in those dark times, I could view many international art reviews and literature there. You know that at that time, foreign media had a "narrow profile" because we could not even view these magazines in Letenská Street in the Union of Architects, so people sometimes subscribed to them through acquaintances abroad.

You mentioned the British Museum library. Which qualities there do you perceive as decisive?
Firstly, the speed with which they find and deliver a book to you, which today is solved by a common automatic system, known as retrieval. And the second topic is the very high-quality workspace, respectively, the area for concentration.

We return in a circle to internal situatedness and the complexity of internal dispositions. You therefore measure the library's utility primarily by the quality of the "workspace"?
The current library with our way of life and workload indeed presents a tangle of questions. Here, I probably connect with the experiences of every student or researcher: you subconsciously always look for a place where you can concentrate best. This tends to be by a window or on the edge; by the way, you often find that those sitting nearby suddenly start sniffling very definitely. Or they even begin to read aloud! But seriously: generally, a study room or reading room should be designed so that it evokes a feeling that you can get enough peace or almost privacy, but simultaneously without the impression that you are "in a cage." A good architect of the library knows that you subconsciously seek a certain balance between the feeling of privacy and publicness. You are part of a certain social event. And you are not isolated. By the way, for example, in Princeton, there exists, mainly for professors who have a closer relationship with the library there, something like a cell in the basement. Or better, like a booth in a swimming facility. When working on a long-term problem, you can temporarily leave your books, which you have borrowed for an extended period, here.

It offers you something like your private study room.
Some people like this, but personally, I find it somewhat bleak. It feels like sitting in solitary confinement, where studying becomes a kind of punishment. But consider that to be my purely personal opinion…

The mentioned balance will be key.
In a library, you often want to be alone, but on the other hand, not completely alone - so that you can concentrate. In other words, the library must exhibit certain sensitive characteristics. These characteristics are not mysterious or particularly romantic, despite all sensitivity. It is a quite simple human matter. By the way, notice the situation when entering an empty cafe: gradually, people often first occupy the seats by the windows before moving to the corner, and the last place they occupy, if I know right, is the spot in the center.
We discover certain common characteristics related to the aforementioned balance between what makes sense to share and what is purely individual on the other hand. Otherwise viewed, it's two sides of the problem of staying in today's shared spaces: it's the extreme of isolation and the extreme of "non-individuality," i.e., the crowd.

LIBRARY & TRANSCENDENCE

The "library" house also radiates something additional with regard to its conceptual content stored on the shelves.
In Klementinum, for instance, one always senses a certain dignity. It’s like listening to music. The visual and physiognomic elements always play a significant role in what and where you listen to. Similarly, it is with reading. Even during the most concentrated work with literature, you do not spend time absolutely focused. Therefore, the surrounding visual field plays a role. For example, in college libraries, you often find a garden next to the study room. I remember in Klementinum that I often could relax by looking at Hiebl's fresco…
In summary: when we deal with students in Cambridge regarding space, we always maintain the view that half of the architectural qualities is not about how the room looks or what is in it, but about what is outside, outside this space. After all, the library is not only composed of rooms but also of what lies between them and behind them. By the way, all of this also creates traditions. Thus, the window of the library does not lead out to a courtyard with garbage cans, but perhaps onto a tree-lined street…
In most libraries, certainly in Cambridge, but also in the British Museum, before you receive a book, you wait in a room that is often the reference library. On the shelves are encyclopedias, histories, biographies, etc. This space creates a certain atmosphere but also represents the character of the Place. And at the same time, it offers readers important information.

The focal point of the house - the book also has an impact with its cover, respectively, its graphics. And it effectively represents a small image…
By the way, Boulée, when he created his famous design for the French National Library, stated that the best decoration of the library is the book itself…
And this brings me back to the question of transcendence. We are part of what points to something broader, helping us situate ourselves in the individual: up to the awareness that we, as users, are part of the room along with others working here. Similarly, - when expanding this notion - the library is also part of the city.

So let’s gaze into the nearby distance and imagine that the Czech National Library stands in Letná...
That is, that it will be an isolated building, not a house as a part of the urban organism? It will function, but - I apologize: it would be, like when you drive a car and you only have two speeds. So - you’ll get somewhere. However, it’s always about degrees of success: the library can be more or less successful. But the point is to understand what the object can represent. That it can be a cultural institution. And a cultural institution is more than just a library. It is something that belongs to broader contexts and contains transcendence within it. Transcendence, or better, transcendent aspects in culture... And these transcendent aspects are mutual. As we know, as soon as we transcend, we are also transcended. And the National Library can thus gain a completely different dimension. For example, by having a theater next to it and a bookstore just a bit further away, etc. That there is also a decent restaurant, a café where people can meet differently - perhaps at times when the library is already closed. This creates the quality of a place in the broader sense, but that brings us into the realm of urbanism… And thus, the library becomes a living part of a living city. Of course, one need not take this as a "paradise on earth," but when so much money is to be invested in a building and concerning such a significant national matter, it should be done in a way that people will still take it seriously in 30-40 years, believing that it was not just a poorly thought-out mistake.

Let me repeat the last question from the first interview: What have you read recently?
Afluenzu by Australian economist and mathematician Clive Hamilton. Hamilton deals with the mental problem and ultimately the real illness of people who are infected by commerce - that is, shopping, the pursuit of branded originality, and commercial entertainment. By the way, at the end, the reader finds a questionnaire and learns, when filling it out, whether they are also afflicted with affluent disease. Afluenza affects not only the audience but also the authors who do not see the difference between culture and the monumentalization of commercial originality and entertainment.

Thank you for the interview.