Ines Miersch-Süß

Libraries Architecture and Innovation

“I have learned that if you want to look far into the future, you must first look far back.”
– Lord Norman Foster – in Rolex Magazine, Issue #05

From XXL to IIL –Library Architecture as a Heritage and Future

Unit – A Reliable Partnership as a Driver for Development,
Exchange, and Innovation

Library and architecture is a long-term story told by heritage and future as a close
partnership for information transfer to the public, to the people. Therefore, only by
presence of heritage we understand the future strategies of library architecture.
As guardians and administrators of real information, libraries give architects
the task of designing the transfer of information through spatial creation. Librar-
ies provide tasks, architectures provide answers. This connection has not changed
since the beginning of the printed work and its reception. Through experiences, new
and growing information, and social change, the library is constantly challenged to
change and develop. It always formulates new requirements for space. From these
impulses, changes in architecture arise. New approaches to thinking pave new paths
for spatial formation. Information becomes innovation.

On the Way to XXL – A Short History of and Outlook on Library

Architecture Development

The unstoppable development of the library and its architecture is reflected in four
sequences over the centuries. Starting from the treasuries in feudal castles, their
transformation into its own building typology, the renewal through spatial network-
ing in cultural centers, the library paves its way into the worldwide distribution and
anchoring in all cultures. This is the long and lasting wonderful history of the library.
Its heritage, its starting point, the so-called Rara collections, form its foundation as
treasure chambers unforgotten and continuous and are also local identity creators.
A new challenge is announced: while artificial intelligence has long been part of
everyday life in research and development, in teaching, business, and medicine, its
presence in the wider society is still new. Artificial intelligence generates wide access
to information. This can lead to a new wave of creativity and innovation as human
intelligence adapts to this speed and draws new values from it. What architectures
does this require? Libraries provide tasks, architectures provide answers.

Ines Miersch-Süß, MSAO Architects

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110689501-009
80 Ines Miersch-Süß

A new type of building is emerging – the library

Libraries are constantly reinventing themselves

Fig. 3: The Alte Bibliothek (Old Library, also called “Commode”) on Bebelplatz in
Berlin-Mitte. It was built from 1775 to 1780 by Georg Friedrich von Boumann after
a design by Georg Christian Unger. The building has been designated as a historic
landmark. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:POPPEL(1852)_p2.695_
BERLIN,_BIBLIOTHEK_UND_PRINZENPALAIS.jpg.

Fig. 4: Paris, Pompidou – cultural center with media library. By Suicasmo – own work,
CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91365114.
 Libraries Architecture and Innovation 81

Libraries are part of all cultures

Libraries rely on their cultural heritage

Fig. 5: Interior of Qatar National Library 2018. © MSAO

Fig. 6: Rara Collection Qatar National Library 2018. © MSAO

82 Ines Miersch-Süß

Fig. 7 and 8: Library. © courtesy

of Fondazione Querini Stampalia
Venezia
The original nucleus of the Querini
Stampalia Library was formed
over the course of seven centuries
of the Querini Stampalia’s family
history and includes manuscripts,
early printed matter, rare, printed
editions, antique maps, and
engravings. The modern collec-
tion consists of around 350,000
volumes and is continually
increased. Moreover, the Library
has the status of the city’s civic
library according to an agreement
made with the Municipality of
Venice.

Fig 9: Auditorium. © Alessandra Chemollo – Venezia

“Giannina Piamonte” Auditorium of Fondazione Querini Stampalia was designed by architect Mario
Botta. Comfortable, elegant, and highly equipped, it is one of the most innovative spaces of the
city. It is equipped with 132 reclining seats (66 in the orchestra, 66 in the balcony) and a stage for a
maximum of five speakers. The auditorium can be used for organizing conferences, screenings, and
video conferences.
 Libraries Architecture and Innovation 83

The M, S, and XS Libraries – Heritage and Future

Stories in Context of Exchange
When we talk about libraries and their architectures, we also need to take a look at the
libraries that are M, S, and XS solutions in context. They are important building blocks
of a city or institution. Through their indispensable presence, they ensure continuous
development.

“Primo L’Incontro” with an Instance of Exchange

My first encounter with one of the most impressive libraries took place in 1991. At that
time, I was still a student, travelling to Venice for an extensive research on the work of
Carlo Scarpa. After a few stops in the surroundings of Vicenca, I reached La Serenis-
sima Repubblica di San Marco, visited the still preserved Olivetti Store on St. Mark’s
Square, and finally reached the Palazzo Querini Stampalia, the registered office of the
Fondazione Querini Stampalia. Carlo Scarpa had renovated the foyers and the garden
of the palace between 1963 and 1965 with a comprehensive architectural intervention.
On the upper floors I discovered the library, with which I immediately fell in love and
which offered me space to deepen my research on Scarpa on the same day and on
site. Since then I have returned to Venice year after year and have visited the Fondazi-
one Querini Stampalia continuously. Scarpa’s architectural intervention should not
remain the last. It was just the beginning of a series of spatial developments. On the
occasion of the 150th anniversary Fulvio Irace1 said:

“Four Buildings find themselves finally reunited under one roof and with a single function as
a cultural hub and study centre continue the intellectual community: Three architects, Carlo
Scarpa, Valeriano Pasto and Marion Botta have complied with the institutions of various pres-
idents and curators, who for over half a century have plotted the course of an intelligent and
gradual transformation from the original foundation to a structure present capable of taking on
the challenges of modernity while never veering from the intransigence of its reiterated social
vocation.”

In 1869 Giovanni Querini Stampalia established an institution with his will to which
he entrusted the task of “promoting the cult of good studies and useful disciplines”.
It is located in the middle of Venice in the Sestiere Castello. As a foundation, it grants
access to its extensive holdings in one of the most beautiful Venetian palaces and
today is still a place of tradition and future, where both are in permanent current
dialogue. The Fondazione Querini Stampalia and its library are an institution of
exchange.

1 Fulvio Irace in Mario Botta Querini Stampalia (curated by Mario Gemin) (Venice, 2015), p. 19.
84 Ines Miersch-Süß

Fig. 10: Bauhaus-Archiv

Central building with distinc-
tive Shed roofs.
Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum
für Gestaltung. Klingelhöfer
Str. 14, 10785 Berlin. Finished
in 1979 after a modified draft,
originally by Walter Gropius
in 1964 for a building in
Darmstadt. Since 1997 it has
been under monument protec-
tion. OBJ-Dok-Nr.: 090 50 377.
https://commons.wikimedia.
org/wiki/File:Bauhaus_
Archiv_Berlin_5.jpg.

Fig. 11, 12, 13 and 14: New

Interior Design by Architect
Ines Miersch-Süß for the new
presence of the Bauhaus-
Archiv Libary in the Middle
Hall of the Gropius-Building.
© MSAO
 Libraries Architecture and Innovation 85

The Library of the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung

in Berlin

Heritage architectures now also include modern buildings. The Bauhaus-Archiv in

Berlin is one of the most prominent buildings of post-war modernism in Berlin. Not
far away is the Neue Nationalgalerie on Potsdamer Platz by Mies van der Rohe. The
Bauhaus-Archiv was built in Berlin in 1976 according to a design by Bauhaus founder
Walter Gropius. Initially it was intended as an archive so a collection of the estates of
Bauhaus students and Bauhaus actors, the writings, objects, and ­publications, was
created. These were to be researched and made available to the public in regular exhi-
bitions. Soon the space “under the shed roof” was not enough and a new extended
solution had to be found for the now grown Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung.
On behalf of the Bauhaus-Archiv, I developed a new overall concept for a new architec-
tural solution for the existing Bauhaus-Archiv building, the Gropiusbau, as the largest
“Architecture Exhibit Bauhaus-Archiv” from the 1960s. Two competitions were held
for the complementary building of the future exhibition center. In the future, only
the Library of the Bauhaus-Archiv will be the focus of the identity-forming Gropius-
bau. Continuing to work on a Gropius design requires a lot of humility and experi-
ence at the same time. Immersing yourself in the soul of another architect’s design
requires you take yourself back to when it was developed. Since the building from the
1980s was built very fragilely according to the constructive possibilities of that time,
a complex use for an exhibition building was no more possible. The existing building
is thus profiled solely as an archive and library. The concept of the light-flooding shed
roofs is the priority and is staged in order to restore the transparency of the flowing
space from the hall on the Landwehr Canal to the central hall of the new library, which
Gropius intended. Its symbolic architecture is a source of identity for the Bauhaus-
Archiv. The architectural design of the library therefore also has its main focus in the
so-called middle construction. The high interior-recurring facade elements allow the
library to be towered over two floors. In the middle is the reading room. The light,
which cuts through the shed roofs, creates an optically impactful connection to the
outside space. This elegance of understatement and functionality puts this unques-
tionably unique building of classical modernism, as the largest exhibit of the Bauhaus-
Archiv-Collection, in focus.

◂
Fig. 15: Bauhaus-Archiv-Pavillon and the Max-Bill-Pillar: Bauhaus related Art Works.
The radiant Bauhaus pavilion, which Miersch-Süß designed and implemented for the Bauhaus-
Archiv in 2005, adorned the perception of the institution from the outside for a long time and with
far-sightedness. The pavilion is seen regularly by thousands of visitors as an “urban eyecatcher” in
photos with incredible Internet distribution. Even today, the pavilion next to the Shedroof views is
the pictorial synonym for the Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin. The pavilion has given the Bauhaus-Archiv
a face, a simple identification for Bauhaus fans worldwide. © MSAO
86 Ines Miersch-Süß

Rara Library inside the new Daylight Architecture of Domschatz

Minden

The starting point of this architectural project was the return of the historical library
collection from the episcopal central library of the Archdiocese of Paderborn to the
cathedral propstei Minden. The small Rara collection of books dating back to the fif-
teenth century covers only 556 volumes. In the context of the new architecture for the
cathedral treasure Minden, it now has a new meaningful role.
The architectural form of the new cathedral treasury as a kind of pyxis creates an
effective presence in the central cathedral square of the city, and together with the
town hall and the cathedral it forms a meaningful urban ensemble of different build-
ing epochs. The 15-metre-high building covers around 450 square meters and three
storeys. Designed as a daylight museum, it serves the exhibition visit and devotion
in daylight (although a cathedral treasury is of course never just a pure art museum).
The only nine main exhibits from around the year 1050 are exhibited on the first floor,
and their presentation is designed for the object’s own effect. On the second floor
we continue with the parts of the collection from the period after 1500. The space is
designed on the basis of a sacristy – i. e. the original storage location of the liturgical
device. The library is also located here. The basic idea behind it all was that the church
treasure inside can be seen or at least guessed from the outside, and vice versa from
the inside as it merges in a collage-like way as part of the city with the views of the
surrounding buildings. Considering the limited size of the building and the extremely
delicate, predominantly metallic, and very finely crafted main objects, the design of
both the building and the interior was limited to a single material: metal. The visitor
of the cathedral treasury Minden should feel an aura of modernity of the present day,
in presence of faith.
In the end, the decisive and formative element of Minden’s cathedral treasury lies
in the daylight rooms on the first floor, where the medieval treasures, which stand
for the values of the Catholic faith, are inevitably brought into the present and are in
exchange with the here and now.
In the context of a treasure collection, the library becomes a treasure itself and
forms the historical link to the present represented by a daylight architecture.
 Libraries Architecture and Innovation 87

16 18

17 19

Fig. 16: View from the inside with Minden’s Madonna. © Dombauverein Minden

Fig. 17: Rara Library in Minden Cathedral ­Treasury. © Dombauverein Minden

Fig. 18: Cathedral with new cathedral treasury, Minden. © HCKrass

Fig. 19: The opposite town hall is reflected in the Alucobond facade of the cathedral treasury.
© HCKrass
88 Ines Miersch-Süß

Fig. 20: https://www.pexels.com/de-de/foto/menschen-frau-buro-surfen-3825558/ RF._.Studio.

 Libraries Architecture and Innovation 89

The IIL – The Intelligent Innovation Library as the

Next Step out of Heritage from Innovation Center to
Innovation Forum
In times of growth of information and the change in its origin, society and its infor-
mation actor – the library – need new forms of information transfer and education
in dealing with new information worlds and new answers through architecture. New
types of information such as artificial intelligence, data intelligence, and business
intelligence are leading to an expansion of human intelligence through digital, fast,
and constantly changing information as an extension of printed, fixed, and slow infor-
mation.
Dealing with these types of information and their use for a broad education of
society now need new attention, clarification, and, above all, exchange. Only the
overall package can take root in society and lead to renewal through a new world of
information. The library as an institution is undergoing a relaunch and an expanded
rethink to accommodate this complexity. Participation, contribution, involving the
broad society in the age of information offers a new opportunity for new architectures.
The library, as an innovation center, needs to be expanded into an innovation forum
that will ensure the participation of the wider society. The II-Library, the Intelligent
Innovation Library, is the next step into the knowledge society. It continues to promote
the library as a medium of the printed word, creating the new marketplace of the
diversity of action spaces as a complement to pure study into a forum of the knowl-
edge society. The library, which has long since slipped into the role of an innovation
center, will become an innovation forum. The printed word was once the beginning of
the Humanity, the II-Library is the beginning of the knowledge society.

A New Friendship for the Awakening of the Knowledge Society

Innovation and Information form an important unit. Just as old as the history of infor-
mation, and thus the history of the library, is the history of innovation. Every renewal
is based on information, every information and its processing leads to a renewal,
whether as a small impulse of thought of the individual or as a great social change.
The library is rightly referred to as the innovation center it has always been. That
it is so directly called such today is a contemporary phenomenon: innovation has
never been more important than it is today. This also includes the willingness to put
innovation at the heart of all our actions. The library plays a special role in this. As an
­information manager and thus an innovation center, or better put a center of innova-
tion, it is the starting point for this development of the future. The XXL Library, the
large information store of printed work, is further developed towards the II Library of
an expanded information world.
90 Ines Miersch-Süß

What does it look like, what is its purpose, how does the II-Library design itself
as an architecture? If we want to answer these questions, we must begin here: the
history of the library and its heritage provide answers. It is about continuation and
continuity as the basis of constant renewal. It is clear that information of any kind
requires systematic processing in order to systematically generate knowledge from it.
The experimental handling of knowledge and the exchange of knowledge take on a
new meaning in the knowledge society. As servants of a knowledge society, the three
levels of “walkable knowledge storage”, “dialogue and conversation”, and “labora-
tory space” as new structural units and architecture represent the Intelligent Inno-
vation Library. An example shows how the resulting Innovation Forum complements
the classical library as an innovation center and adds a new dimension to the effec-
tiveness of information transfer.

Library Architecture for Innovation – Heritage as an Innovation

Driver: The Japanese Palace in Dresden

One of the outstanding innovation stories is told by the Japanese Palais in Dresden.
It is written in three parts and over the course of 200 years. The Japanese Palace in
Dresden, once a castle and innovation representative, then an enlightenment library
and the starting point of the SLUB, today’s Saxon State Library, State and Univer-
sity Library elsewhere, grew into the Innovation Forum of Saxony. In 1717 August the
Strong bought it for the celebration of the wedding of his son Friedrich August II. with
Maria Josepha of Austria in 1719. The sensation of the power of the presentation of this
castle and its prominent location on the banks of the Elbe with the well-known and
unique Canaletto view of Dresden’s old town ignited a new idea. The first European
porcelain, the Meissner Porcelain, which had just been invented in a secret laboratory,
was meant to decorate the Japanese Palace as a porcelain castle in the future. The
idea of an innovation presentation was born. The castle as a whole was intended to
make the innovative power of Saxony and thus its economic potential visible to the
guests of European royalty. The aim was to create new cooperation for the country’s
added value and growth in a European international context. This idea, known as
the porcelain castle, was not finished. August the Strong, the creator of ideas and
their driver, died in 1733. It was only after the seven-year war that the idea of inno-
vation took on a new form. The grandson of August the Strong, August Friedrich III,
first king of Saxony, had the Japanese Palace converted and expanded into the first
electoral and later royal library. In 1786 the palace became a promise to the public
as a publicly accessible place. From this moment the Royal Library in the Japanese
Palace in Dresden was one of the most magnificent libraries in Europe and joined the
now universal opening of royal libraries in Europe. The new public library would be
the driving force behind the new self-awareness of a self-determined bourgeoisie and
the building block of enormous economic renewal and progress in Saxony up to the
 Libraries Architecture and Innovation 91

beginning of the twentieth century. In the second half of the twentieth century, the
palace was initially used as an interim for various institutions.
Now the Japanese Palace is looking for a new task. The following scenario pre-
sents the Japanese Palais as an innovation forum and how it reconciles its history and
future. The common thread of innovation will be resumed and the 200-year history of
innovation will be continued. The former Innovation Palace as a representative office
and library becomes an innovation forum. As the Intelligent Innovation Library, it
represents Saxony’s departure into the information age and the knowledge society.
As an innovation forum, it contains the “walkable knowledge storage”, the space for
“dialogue and conversation” as well as the “laboratory room” as new structural units
and as an overall concept. They are spatially and, in their size, equally divided into
three levels of heritage architecture. The courtyard is traversed by a glass roof and
creates a new information space. Here international guests of the country meet the
broad society. Participation and involvement are at the heart of community building
through meeting and exchange. Guests are welcomed and guided through the heart
of the II-Library, the research level on the ground floor. The focus lies on the history of
economic development and the latest technological developments. For the motivation
of a start-up culture, digital and analogue research modules are created, permanently
open to everyone. New information technologies of artificial intelligence, business
intelligence, and data intelligence are presented. The German Centres for Research
and Innovation are providing a showcase and extended platform for German research
organizations and research-based companies in the II-Library to connect science,
economy and society. The future is present. Upstairs, the co-working space is located
in a variety of flexible architecture. Here, people meet and have intensive discussions
about future development and exchange ideas about possible co-operations. Various
partners form a team and new networks for innovation design are constantly being
created, sometimes in a meeting, sometimes in a large conference or in the podium.
The innovation laboratory is being developed on the upper floor under the roof. As
a great “maker space”, new ideas are emerging here and are being expanded experi-
mentally into innovations, which creates space for creativity. Flexible work situations
offer retreats, lounge areas, or laboratory rooms. This is where the experiment finds
a new site. The former spirit of innovation is palpable. The fact that everything from
history, heritage, and future thinking is related is noticeable here in this once classical
library architecture. As an innovation architecture or creative place of the muses, the
Japanese Palace stands permanently for public use and for the continuity of a knowl-
edge society of the Information Age.
92 Ines Miersch-Süß

Fig. 21: Japanese Palace, view from the river, palace garden. © Jörg Schöner

Fig. 22: From the old to a new Intelligent Innovation Library and International Forum. © MSAO
 Libraries Architecture and Innovation 93
94 Ines Miersch-Süß

The Butterfly Effect is Back

The new cultural center of a new generation in the middle of historic Paris, the
Georg Pompidou triggered a world-changing view of architecture in the middle of the
twentieth century. Francesco Dal Co2 uses the equivalent of the “Butterfly Effect” to
describe this enormous event. Itself inspired by the new construction of the Sydney
Opera House and its gigantic never-before-built or calculated construction, the Pom-
pidou created new perspectives on possibilities and the potential of the twentieth
century. Its multifunctionality as a forum for exhibitions, multimedia library, stage,
and auditorium allowed a new creative networking of the arts and is a value creation
in many ways. The architecture of the interior is the architecture of the exterior, as a
total walkable house center of the historical center of the city. Emmanuelle Macron,
French President, tweeted the message “La France – Terre d’Innovation” in September
2020. He presented a new hydrogen-powered Airbus aircraft series in the video. Even
then, in 1977 for the opening of the “Pompidou”, it was the wing-stroke of a butterfly in
France, which triggered a changed architectural development of the twentieth century
all over the world.
With the Innovation Forum in the Japanese Palace, we, as architects, are start-
ing at this point and giving the “Butterfly Effect” a new meaning with a place where
history is lived, where further thought is taken and the future is generated from it. The
Japanese Palace and its palace garden are the space for innovation. In the garden, a
forum for the young generations is created through twenty-first-century architecture.
Continuity is thus experienced and visible. In the Canaletto Concert Hall, built as a
chamber concert hall and forum, cultural diversity can be lived, whether as music,
conversation or poetry slam. The architecture of a slightly curved outer skin contains
a hall in the form of a shoebox for the highest demands on acoustics combined with
a listener arena set up as an oval forum, which stands for a sense of community. The
balcony and the roof terrace present a view of Canaletto.

The Big Potential for Innovation – Libraries in Context

Heritage and future form a strong unit, because without history there is no future
design. In all times, building forms and building typologies have evolved and devel-
oped. Today, the architects are once again facing this challenge. Many ideas can be
developed when new, innovative tasks are formulated. The architecture of the twen-
ty-first century will continue to think of the architectural philosophy of modernity
as a SUPERMODERNE. SUPERMODERNE uses the potential of existing technologies

2 Francesco Dal Co, Centro Pompidou Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers, and the Making of Modern Monu-
ment (New Haven and London, 2016), Chapter Two, p. 15.
 Libraries Architecture and Innovation 95

and design as a competence for the transformation and innovation of society in the
twenty-first century.
It takes up the values at the beginning of modernity and thinks them further in
corrections. SUPERMODERNE creates community, healthy living, and working condi-
tions and reconciles people and nature. Architecture is a potential for social develop-
ment. Making this potential effective requires courage, creative thought, and a flexible
open-minded society that is ready to overcome borders. All this is fed by information
and its use and rethinking. Libraries will therefore become indispensable and will
have to be continuously developed further as buildings.
Architecture occupies an enormous space that society bears. We must not, there-
fore, squander our role. It is an immense responsibility.

What about a Library for the James-Simon-Galerie in Berlin?

With the James-Simon-Galerie as a new building block, the building ensemble of the
museums of the Museum Island Berlin is to be given a framework that concludes the
basic idea of the Acropolis as an architectural composition and also as a forum idea as
a form-oriented concept3. As an entrance building, it looks rather poor. The scenario
of a Grand Mall originally set with the master plan, which runs underground as a way
through all museums in a short visit, thus also demanded a central entrance building.
But even with the construction of this, questions were raised about the meaning and
need, as each of the five museums has its own equipment of cloakrooms, plumbing,
and ticketing, including book and catalogue sales.
Master plans develop long-term goals. They provide guidance as an overall
concept and are an instrument for adjusting and adapting the objectives initially set.
While it was still an important idea to create a central entrance building in 1996, it
was already outdated in 2006. Unlike the all-connecting foyers under the pyramid
in the Louvre, the James-Simon-Gallery is decentralized. This development from the
side means that the museum is always entered by its visitors from the cellar. The large-
scale entrance halls, the dramaturgy of their portals, are losing power. The decentral-
ized development creates disorientation and unbalances the museum island in its
original composition. The James-Simon-Galerie is a supplement.
The James-Simon-Galerie had and has the great potential to complete the idea of
the Acropolis in terms of content. While at the very beginning of the founding history
of the Museum Island the idea of studying and direct interaction was still the focus,
today the visit to the museums is reduced to the passive visit to the works of art4.

3 Peter-Klaus Schuster, Page 83, Bürgerliche Selbsterfindung, James-Simon-Galerie Berlin (David

Chip­per­field Architects, Köln 2019).
4 Andreas Kühnlein im Gespräch mit David Chipperfield, Page 66, Agora an der Spree, AD Architec-
tural Digest Deutschland Juli & August 2019
96 Ines Miersch-Süß

Fig. 23: Japanese Palace with Canaletto Concert Hall, panoramic view from the Elbe banks. © MSAO

Fig. 24: The Japanese Palais is equally connected Fig. 25: The Intelligent Innovation Library
to the river space and urban space by the Palais- as a new contemporary building block in
park and the Palaisplatz. As an International Forum the historic centre of Dresden, the so-called
and Intelligent Innovation Library, it becomes the Königsufer. As an ­international forum, it
prelude to a newly lived Agora on the Königsufer. continues the idea of the Semperforum and
© MSAO creates a visible public space for the knowl-
edge society in the 21st century. © MSAO
 Libraries Architecture and Innovation 97

The area of the Japanese Palais with the Palais Garden is a cultural heritage and continues the
intentions of its origin to be a house for international encounters and innovation in the present. The
Canaletto Concert Hall offers the young generation a new forum for joint debate, play and exchange.
Embedded in the landscape, it creates a balance between people and nature, heritage and future,
thus unfolding its potential for community development and shaping the future.
98 Ines Miersch-Süß

Fig. 26: JSG Exterior Restaurant by Fridolin Freudenfett – own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80381931.

Fig. 27: Entryway James-Simon-Galerie by Fridolin Freudenfett – own work,

CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80381939.
 Libraries Architecture and Innovation 99

Study in the room is banished and can be found, decentralized, in other places in the
city, represented, for example, by the libraries and study rooms in the Kulturforum at
Potsdamer Platz.
The James-Simon-Galerie has the great potential to be the study space in the
middle of the Berlin Acropolis, like a library instead of only taking into account a place
so rich in history through a columnar structure that wants to act as a formal frame-
work. The James-Simon-Galerie, as a new place in the context of the Museum Island,
where the library of the twenty-first century finds itself as an important building
block, would offer a great opportunity to transform the museum visit from a passive
to an active act.
The wonderfully filigree-formed column aisle is actually a formally successful
architectural solution. Imagine finding instead of just a restaurant a reading room
behind it, a library for research and study. The outstanding literature and elaborately
created publication on the outstanding collections of the Museum Island, which until
now experience an unnoticed existence in the rear at the end of an oversized book-
shop, could thus find a wide readership free of charge in the James-Simon-Galerie,
which could immerse itself again and again after the visit to the museum in the depth
of information on the cultures of distant worlds. In this way, the James-Simon-Galerie
would find an equivalent that also takes into account the formal approach of the
Acropolis through a suitable content component. Such a use would put the finishing
touches to the James-Simon-Galerie.
One of the most important tasks of architects is to show potentials of architecture
that are of socially comprehensive and sustainable use. This requires tasks that are
through to the end, the willingness to reinvent one another again and again, and
the courage to build a value-adding bridge between heritage and future, present and
renewal.
“Without a doubt. Design is and always will be able to create spaces where people can
gather, though design alone can’t guarantee that a collection of highly divergent individuals
will come together as a vibrant, communicative community.” Oliver Jahn, Future Talk.