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POD LIFEHis largest building to date, Shigeru Ban’s
new library is a bold celebration of structure.
The soaring glass-walled atrium and concrete-framed book stacks
of
Shigeru Ban’s Seikei University library seem far removed from
the
lightweight structures and recycled materials for which the
architect is
best known. In fact, several of Ban’s earlier buildings ins
pired key
features in this ambitious new facility. The client requested
that the
library harmonise with its Neo-Classical brick neighbours on
the
century-old Beaux-Arts campus and respect the scale and spirit
of the
structure it replaced. Contextualism is usually a recipe for
timidity, but
Ban has turned the planning constraints to advantage and has
created a
building that is intell igent, welcoming, and dramatic.
The library is set at right angles to the main entrance, facing
over a
grassy quadrangle, and serves as a symbolic gateway to the
campus
and, at night, as a beacon of learning. The sandwich of solid
and void,
brick and glass, stacks and study areas explains the building at
first
sight, but the apparent simplicity masks its complexity. Ban was
asked
to take into account the feelings of those alumni who opposed
thedemolition of the former building. To please them, he analysed i
ts
geometry and applied this to the design of the new
structure,
generating plan and elevation from three golden rectangles. The
walls
of the stacks are concrete cantilevers to which bricks are
attached and
these are separated by floating ribbons of glass. The glass
facade and
rear wall of the atrium reveal the row of zelkova trees behind
the
library and dematerialise the volume.
Each of the three sections is structurally independent. In the
two
wings, bookshelves assume the role of columns, sharing much of
the
lateral force and vertical load, as in Ban’s 1995 Furniture
House. The
bowed roof of the atrium is supported on a steel truss,
tensioned with
laminated timber beams, and faced with Strandboard – a
recycled
wood composite that absorbs sound. Its graceful arc derives from
the
Paper Museum completed five years ago.
There are five levels in the library, with a ramp for the
handicapped
leading to the partly s unken ground floor, and steps leading up
to the
main entrance at first floor l evel. At night, the five meeting
rooms that
rise from the base like gracefully tapered mushrooms are
clearly
visible; by day they are revealed as you ste p inside, and they
draw your
eyes up to the vault, past a stack of bowed galleries to ei ther
side.
Round and oval, these pod-like enclosures serve as break-out
areas for
1The new libraryand its Beaux-Artsneighbours.2Giant pods
appearto gaze quizzicallyfrom behind theglazed facade of thereading
room.
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY,
TOKYO, JAPAN
ARCHITECT
SHIGERU BAN
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2
Library
Existing Building
site plan
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5Glazed carrels provide enclavesfor solitary study around
theperimeters of each floor.6Detail of the tall glazed facadeand
the bowed reading-room roof.7Typical book stacks.8Inside a
pod.9 Walkways fly vertiginously acrossthe soaring space.
seminars and staff conferences; as vantage points and sculptures
that
animate the void. Each has arched steel ribs that frame glass
and
support a luminous ceiling. Flying bridges link them to the
galleries
which are accessed from angled glass lifts. Anyone who remembers
the
futuristic set László Moholy-Nagy conceived for the 1936 movie
Things
to Come, will eagerly await the entry of a toga-clad Raymond
Massey,
intoning a sermon by H. G. Wells on the marvels of technology.
You
wonder if Ban ever saw the movie, and whether a science fiction
film
may be shot here during the summer vacation.
However fanciful these steel and glass mushrooms may seem,
they
reinforce an artful strategy to increase attendance. The
planning
committee noted that many students used the college library only
on
the eve of examinations. Entering the reading room required that
they
stop chattering to each other and to friends on their mobile
phones, a
deprivation as cruel and unusual as denying wine to a
sophisticated
adult. Ever sensitive to human needs , Ban had a solution:
create aspacious glass-walled lobby and furnish it as a comfortable
lounge to
provide a decompression chamber between the talkative world
beyond
and the realm of study within. The atrium provides a s econd
layer in
which only quiet conversation is allowed, and students even
reprove
staff for using mobile phones at the check-out counter. The pods
are
aerial versions of the lobby. Finally, there is the quiet zone
of the stacks
and galleries, and glass-enclosed carrels for solitary study at
the ends
of each floor. There, users can adjust light and temperature to
suit
themselves, and these private spaces serve as a thermal barrier
that
reduces the heating and cooling load within. MICHAEL WEBB
Architect
Shigeru Ban,Tokyo
Structural engineer
Mitsubishi Jisho Sekkei
Photographs
Hiroyuki Hirai
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY,
TOKYO, JAPAN
ARCHITECT
SHIGERU BAN
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