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Mario Botta Architetto's winning design for the King Fahad National library planned for Riyadh
A multimillion dollar library, which will be the largest of its kind in the Middle East when complete, has been planned for a 60 sq km area of Riyadh. The King Fahad National Library is expected to cost SR350 million ($93 million) to build and is expected to be completed in five years.
A contract for the design of the project is expected to be signed shortly with Mario Botta Architetto/Saudi Consulting Services which won a design competition for the development, according to a spokesman for the Arriyadh Development Authority (ADA).
The proposed library is earmarked to occupy a site adjacent to the plot for the new Ministry of Education (still being designed) on Abubaker As Siddeeq Road (parallel east to King Abdulaziz Road), south of Al Amir Abdullah Ibn Abdulaziz Road.
The design work will take 14 months, after which tenders for the construction are expected to be announced.
In May 1999, the ADA invited 11 Saudi and international architectural firms to submit design proposals for the new library. The proposals were to be developed in response to terms of reference prepared by the ADA on behalf of the National Library which was seeking design solutions that would offer to users and staff a high level of comprehensibility, comfort, flexibility, compactness, extendibility and safety and security.
Design solutions were sought that would:
In response to this invitation, in mid-September 1999, the ADA received seven design proposals.
"The seven proposals as a group represented a very good overall standard of conceptual design. The submissions were well-prepared and the presentations by the designers have been lucid and frequently very stimulating," says the spokesman.
He continues: "In its review of the proposals, the jury sought to identify the strengths and shortcomings of each concept. Where the concept showed real promise of being the basis for a very good design solution, the jury looked at the shortcomings in terms of the relative ease whereby they might be remedied without loss to the fundamental design concept.
"The first prize went to Mario Botta Architetto's proposal, which presents a masterful resolution of the relationship between space and building on the site that attends explicitly to conditions in Riyadh and sets an example for future public developments throughout the city. The arrangement and form of elements on the site provides an outstanding basis for a highly distinguished and fitting National Library. The site plan creates spaces and opportunities for experiences that are highly responsive to the sequence and form of public spaces characteristic of the best of urban form in Islamic cities.
"The logic and readability of building articulation establishes a highly legible, dignified and functional relationship between the library elements. This concept, when developed and refined in close consultation with the client to take into account the matters needing attention mentioned earlier, provides an outstanding basis for the building of a national library of unparalleled quality."
