Meeting point in the city
Library in Catalonia by BCQ Arquitectura
© Adrià Goula
Biblioteca Pilarín Bayés in Vic is not just a place for reading. Behind its wooden brise-soleils a varied interior environment with a café, areas for encounter, games and citizen information services is to be found.
© Adrià Goula
The new-build named for a children's books author born in 1941 in Vic is situated on the embankment road flanking Mèder river and has been built in replacement of a Spanish Guardia Civil barracks that in 1991 was the scene of a bomb attack by the Basque underground organisation Eta. To the north the building opens up in U-shaped fashion to the river and abuts the windowless exterior walls of residential buildings in the south.
A sloping grassy area designed as a social space and place of remembrance of the crime enables direct access to the basement and provides it sufficient natural light. The ten trees that have been planted here – one for every victim of the attack – shade the building in summer. A distinctly more modest footpath leads round the side of the building to the main entrance.
© Adrià Goula
Natural light
The architects sought to make the public library a meeting place for the entire city community. Smaller, intimate reading areas, an open double-height children's area and seminar rooms are to be found inside along with a computer games department, a recording studio and a ground-floor restaurant near the entrance.
© Adrià Goula
© Adrià Goula
The building's orientation to the north enabled the architects to open sizeable areas of the rooms to natural light without having to fear problems with overheating. Large brise-soleils made of glued laminated timber protect the glass surfaces from direct sunlight. Air for the ventilation system is sucked in from the cool intermediary space between the glass and the wood.
Architecture: BCQ arquitectura barcelona
Client: Stadtrat von Vic, Provinz Barcelona
Location: Passeig de la Generalitat, 1, 08500 Vic (ES)
Site management: BCQ arquitectura barcelona and Toni Casamor
Structural engineering: BAC Engineering Consultancy Group
Building services engineering: AIA Instal·lacions Arquitectòniques
Budgeting: FAHE Consulting Arquitectura
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