French practice Bruno Gaudin Architectes has completed a 15-year project to renovate and open up the historic rue de Richelieu site of the National Library of France in Paris, incorporating new public routes and spaces.
Completed in the late 19th century by architect Henri Labrouste, the library is considered a masterpiece of the Beaux Arts style, with vast, skylit reading rooms framed by slender steel columns and highly decorative arches.
Bruno Gaudin Architectes has renovated the National Library of France
Subject to piecemeal renovations in the 1950s, by the end of the 20th century the library had become largely obsolete, with its major collections moved to the library's François-Mitterand site, completed by Dominique Perrault in 1995. Following an extensive overhaul, the rue de Richelieu site now houses reading rooms for the National Library of France alongside the Library of the National Institute for Art History and the Library of the École Nationale des Chartes.
It took 15 years to renovate and open up the historic building
"After 15 years of work, we have returned a building that has been profoundly transformed to meet the contemporary challenges of welcoming the public, opening it up to the city and sharing and exchanging with the younger generations," said Bruno Gaudin Architectes.
"Yesterday, closed in on itself, the large, magnificent, worn, fragmented, dark and dilapidated treasure chest has now been given a new identity, full of light," t...