Place

Milan, Italy

Client

Fondazione BEIC

Project

Bolles & Wilson

Services provided

Design Management (on behalf of F&M Ingegneria)

Period

2010-2011

The Biblioteca Europea di Informazione e Cultura (BEIC) aims at make a large number of major humanistic and scientific works freely available to the public. With 900,000 books directly available in its reading rooms, while other 1,200,000 books will be archived in the basement, it is a reading education tool that meets the needs of the twenty-first century. The library will be built in the eastern part of Milan, in the area formerly occupied by the Porta Vittoria railway station. The rectangular building is a block of 36 metres with two side entrances to the east and the west, connected to the urban road network with ramps. Large windows on the eastern and western façades act as a filter between the inside of the library and the city. The reading rooms are located on the northern side of the Forum, while rooms to consult materials, organised around light wells, are located in the eastern part of the complex. In the basement are located conference rooms, an educational centre, a media-forum and a parking lot.