The Bibliothèque de France : the story of a plan

The plan of Bibliothèque de France has raised many discussions and controversies. Before that, the evolution of the National library, too cramped and saturated, produced various polemics too. First, they thought about a BN bis, with an extension of the existing spaces. Then François Mitterrand's idea of « an absolutely new type » library made the criticisms increase : once about the collections conveyance, once about the chronological break, the architectural competition only based on a suggestion of plan, or its access for every public... Whatever the criticisms may be, dialogues never failed : so these fifteen working groups which included the future users in their regular meetings during six months.
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