Underground thoughts: the University of Thessalonica has dug in to create an underground library that gives the comfort of the cave, while being a powerful academic machine - Interior Design - Brief Article

Architectural Review, The, May, 2002 by Peter Davey

LIBRARY, ARISTOTLE UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONICA, GREECE

ARCHITECT

ANASTASSIOS KOTISOPOULOS, MORPHO PAPNIKOLAOU, IRENA SKELLARIDOU

The main campus of the Aristotle University of Thessalonica was started in the 1950s and, like many of its contemporaries, it is an ordered structure of cleanly designed concrete buildings permeated by large amounts of greenery. On the whole, it has stood up well, and (with some exceptions) additions have conformed to the intentions of the master plan. But the university continues to grow, and it is running out of sites.

So when the library needed to expand, it was decided to put the extension underground. The approach is part of an overall university strategy, by which new work will largely be underground in a series of fragments intended to restore the essentially urban character of the campus. The new part of the library is apparently entirely separate from the original 1960 building by Papaioannou & Fines which stands alone like a pavilion in a park. The landscape sweeps round to the north-east of the old building, over the roof of the new bit. New and old are separated by a sort of gulch in which the severe facade of the Papaioannou & Fines building is faced with an almost Aaltoesque brick wall, rough faced and sensuous as a metaphor of the earth from which it is excavated.

The gulch is in fact a reinforcement of the pedestrian axis across the campus, a route that connects university to city. A path breaks through the brick wall, almost at right angles to the axis. A triangular glass sail hovers over it, drawing you on into a beton brut drum, open to the sky. Down into the drum curves a stair that delivers you to the entrance level of the library extension. In a sort of Alice in Wonderland progression, you go through a constricted tunnel-like entry lobby to come out facing the reception desk. Gradually, it becomes clear that on each side of the compressed entrance sequence is a majestic space, lit from the top and panelled in wood.

This is the double-height reading room, the focus and raison d'etre of the place. It is at once intimate and grand, with the concrete of the drum and its battered buttresses contrasting with the warm panelling, almost as if a huge and delicate study has been built round the very well preserved remains of a mysterious Hadrianic ruin. Luminance pours in from varied sources. The biggest is the nether part of the triangular glass sail that greeted you at the entrance. Daylight is always supplemented by artificial sources.

The wood walls of the great study are cut back to make small individual study spaces lined with open access shelving. Detailing is simple, and the finished result would have been elegant and fine, were it not for the clumsiness created by the contracts used in Greek public works, which give contractors far too much power over finished buildings. It will be used largely by graduate students, so its separation from the original library, though contentious, is perhaps justified. (The two parts are linked by a lowest floor containing closed stacks.)

But the force of the proposal remains. The great space is an inspiring invention, calm and appropriate for study. And multi-layered ideas are carried through into every part of the building (as far as the contract has allowed).

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