非常感谢

King Roselli Architetti

Appreciation towards King Roselli Architetti for providing the following description:Photo © Santi Caleca

Pontificial Lateran大学的图书馆扩建和礼堂重整项目。这个内部地面是盘旋斜坡的新图书馆与老馆密切相连。新馆中盘旋的斜坡围绕中庭上升，阅览区就安置在斜坡上。

The New Reading Rooms and Auditorium Restoration of the Pontificial Lateran University Project By King Roselli Architetti Riccardo Roselli – Design Architect

On commissioning the project for the new library extension to the Pontificial Lateran University, the chancellor Mons. Rino Fisichella was quite clear in his main objective: to bring the activity of reading and the consultation of books as the central occupation of the university.

礼堂改建得符合现代标准。无论是设备，声学，还是安全性，舒适性都满足需求。两侧的木墙格栅不仅吸声效果良好还可以控制光线进入。红色宽大的圆角扶手椅符合人体工程学，表面的皮革由传统工艺完成，相当考究。

The university holds an outstanding collection of books numbering around 600,000 volumes, some of which date back to the 16th century, whose subjects for the most part coincide with the principal academic courses: philosophy, theology, canonic law. The bulk of them are now deposited in the newly restored compartmentalised underground vaults equipped with an adequate fire extinguisher system and humidity and temperature control. Its location remains the same as in the original plan in the assembly hall block towards the entrance gate. The 25,000 volumes of antique books are kept in an especially controlled environment separately for their better conservation.

Originally the reading rooms of the library were located on the ground floor of the same block and are now replaced by the ground floor entrance foyer to the Aula Magna and the librarians’ offices.

The new reading rooms and book stacks for free consultation are enclosed in the new extension placed closer to the heart of the university with access from the main spine of the first floor corridor. The reading rooms previously located haphazardly around the university are now concentrated in a single volume with access to 70,000 volumes and 750 publications housed in the six floors of book stacks in a fire-protected tower. The new volume thus makes the chancellor’s request for a centrality to the library’s activities architecturally explicit.

Externally, the new volume is placed next to a central block of lecture rooms of the “E” shaped plan. Although it is carefully aligned with the existing volume and clad in the same brick, the new block nevertheless assertively declares its modernity in the play of suspended volumes in light and shade.

The result of this move has two immediate consequences: to the right, the Aula Magna wing now more clearly declares its difference and importance with regard to the other lecture hall wings. Its use of travertine cladding and particularly in its superior height and overall volume gain significance. To the left of the combined library and lecture hall block, the entrance to the university, remodelled some ten years ago, is clarified as such. This was achieved by demolishing the stone loggia to make way for the library, and maintaining the access to the ground floor of the university through the new block a much more subdued affair.

The library’s presence can be perceived from within the university; through a series of viewing cones created by joining the window reveals (that once gave on to the exterior) to apertures closed with fire glass in the book stacks. It is entered from the first floor corridor of the main building down a flight of basalt stairs under the first level of the book stacks into a spacious foyer. This is where the locker room, computer indexes-laid on an articulated table, card index, professors reading room and librarians posting are set.