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Berlin-based studio Kéré Architecture has revealed designs for the Biblioteca dos Saberes in Rio de Janeiro, which features perforated facades and a cylinder that rises from its centre.
Biblioteca dos Saberes will be located in the city’s Cidade Nova neighbourhood and across from architect Oscar Niemeyer’s Sambódromo parade ground, where the Rio Carnival takes place annually.
According to Kéré Architecture, it is the studio’s “first built project in South America”, and its second library project after the Gando Primary School Library in founder Diébédo Francis Kéré’s hometown of Gando, Burkina Faso.
Kéré Architecture has revealed designs for a public library in Rio de Janeiro located next to Oscar Niemeyer’s Sambódromo parade ground
The building will be dedicated to indigenous and Afro-Brazilian heritage and the dance type samba, which originated in the country’s northeast region from the same roots.
Samba also plays a prominent role in the city’s carnival celebrations across the way, while the building sits on the site of a former samba school.
It will contain reading rooms, library stacks, workshops, exhibition spaces, an auditorium and a cafe, with the interior set to progress from a “quiet to lively” program.
A cylinder rises through the centre of the library
Wrapped in a perforated, layered facade, the library consists of three storeys of curved, flat planes that are covered in outdoor terraces.
An illuminated, lamp-like cylinder, informed by the trees in the nearby Tijuca Forest, rises up through its centre.
It is composed of three stories of curved planes and walkways
“The Biblioteca dos Saberes is a celebration of the beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro,” said Kéré. “This library grows from the city’s history and wisdom, from samba that moves the body to the poetry that moves the heart.”
The building also contains a number of elevated curved pathways, one of which bridges across the street to a monument dedicated to anti-slavery resistance leader Zumbi dos Palmares.
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Located near the city’s Little Africa neighbourhood, the project ties into the city’s slow reckoning with its history of slavery.
Nearby, a wharf that once served as the largest port for enslaved Africans arriving in South America was converted into a UNESCO World Heritage site after it was uncovered during the Rio 2016 Olympics.
It will be dedicated to Afro-Brazilian heritage and samba
Designs were revealed during the country’s Black Consciousness Day, a recently decreed national public holiday aimed at celebrating and reflecting on Afro-Brazilian culture and history.
It is part of larger revitalisation projects in the city’s downtown area, including the removal of elevated freeways. The Museum of Tomorrow by Santiago Calatrava is also located nearby, while the city was named the first World Capital of Architecture in 2020.
The images are courtesy of Kéré Architecture.
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