Bibliothèque Nationale François-Mitterrand

The building of the library for the 21st century was a response to certain practical needs. However, in addition to responding to these needs, we believed it was right for France to clearly demonstrate its sense of the value of its intellectual wealth and its confidence in the future of books and reading through the form of an exemplary monument. (…) I also welcome Dominique Perrault’s work, whose precise arguments have earned my respect. The building he designed is clear and radiant in its symmetry; its lines are measured; its spaces and functions are conceived simply. (…) Between heaven and earth, the esplanade of the library stretches out, open to all, like a vast public space where individuals can meet and mingle with others in a manner that is so unique in the public spaces of modern cities.

It is a classic architectural gesture, entirely in the spirit of Paris. Its monumental scale corresponds to the city, and the French seem to have a cool rationality towards this kind of project.

To be an architect today means to practice one of the last Renaissance professions that touches all areas of human endeavor. (…) Architecture is not avant-garde art; it is an arrière-garde art, thus a lagging art. It has always been twenty years behind the great avant-garde artistic movements, always full of anxiety that it will be contaminated too quickly. Artists have declared the death of art; it is time for architects to manifest the death, decay, disappearance of architecture and replace it with an approach that will connect our cities with the world of nature. (…) What fascinates me about the library is the feeling that we have created a mystical place that transcends all known references.