The best libraries of the 21st century

They are architectural jewels on the outside and keep literary treasures between their walls.It is not easy to make a list of the best libraries in the world, because there are on all continents and, from Alejandría to Sejong, none lacks charms.To the cathedrals of the classic book such as the Martian of Venice or Oxford's have joined in recent years other libraries that are modernity paradigm, new models to follow where architecture plays a relevant role.

The Oodi library on Helsinki has been designed to be more than a book container.Built with local materials and covered with Finnish fir planks, three plants are divided with differentiated functions.The decline is a place for the town, the upper one, a terrace that wants to be the "sky of the book" and the intermediate, a space for many other acivities that go beyond reading: film room, audiovisual recording studios andCreative Area

The fantastic Library of the Bastardo de Colón son

MVRDV designed the Tianjin Binhai library, which was built in just three years, with the idea that the shelves were the whole of the building, they serve their classic function of containing books also to sit and to access the upper floors.Inaugurated in 2017, this library is known as the eye, by the spherical auditorium of its ground floor, a space to "see and be seen".

A la biblioteca de Tianjin Binhaila han bautizadocomo “súper ciencia ficción”, pero no le va a la zaga en la modernidad la deSejong en Corea del Sur. Diseñada por la firma Samoo Architects&Engineers y construida en 2014, esta biblioteca tiene un atrevido diseño en forma de arco invertido y también es original en su propuesta para los lectores, ya que combina formatos analógicos y digitales para que los usuarios puedan elegir entre el libro en papel y el electrónico.

These latest fashion libraries contrast with the classicism of other cathedrals of the book of a lifetime such as Lamarciana de Venice.It is a beautiful Renaissance building, located in front of the Ducal Palace in the famous Plaza de San Marcos, designed by the architect Jacopo Sansovino and built between 1537 and 1588. Its content is no less precious, since the Venetian library houses authentic treasures of classical literatureand a collection of Greek and Latin manuscripts that Cardinal Bessarion, bishop of Tusculum and Patriarch of Constantinople, donated to the city of the channels in 1468.

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If there is a library that has all the nostalgia of the classic and at the same time it is in the latest fashion is that of Alexandria in Egypt.It was a reference in ancient times.Built in the third century BC.C For the Ptolemy dynasty, he picked up all the wisdom of his time in the form of papiros and inspired the many scholars of his time.

It was the Pasto of the flames in the year 48 a.C and went to collective memory as one of the lost treasures of humanity.The current Egyptians have resisted dispensing with their great cathedral of culture and in 2001 they inaugurated their new library with the same vocation to agglutinate all the knowledge of the world that had its mythical predecessor.Save four million books and a collection of Greek antiques.It also has a manuscript restoration center.

The Martian Library of Venice was heiress of Alexandria's disappeared in a rebirth that set out to recover the classic.Already in the Baroque, Oxford delved into the recovery of that legacy with the construction in 1602 of the Bodleiana Library, which has a wonderful circular building, the Radcliffe Chamber, designed by James Gibbs and built between 1737 and 1749. The library of theFamous British University has a fund in which they have the quantity and quality, since it adds more than 11,000 articles, some as valuable as the Magna Carta, a Gutenberg Bible or Shakespeare's first folio.

The colonies soon took over.The United States can boast heritage in libraries, but in its extensive catalog two stand out: that of Congress in Washington and the public of New York.The capital was built in 1800 and, after some moment of decline, can now flaunt being one of the largest in the world with 158 million documents.Not only keep writings.Its background is completed with movies, maps, comics, scores, songs, photographs ...

On fifth Avenue between 40 and 42 streets is the New York Public Library.Carrère and Hastings took care of designing the building, which was inaugurated in 1911, and which has as its strong point a large central reading room, Rose, illuminated with the double focus of large arc -shaped windows and multiple candlesticks that hang from itsGold roof.

The Royal Portuguese Cabinet of Leitura, in Rio de Janeiro;Vasconcelos, in Mexico City;that of the Vatican, in Rome;The Thomas Fisher for Rare Books, in Toronto;The nationals of Austria or Sweden ... The list of cathedrals of the book is very complete and an unavoidable appointment for lovers of architecture or literature, or both, around the world.