Culture is future » Territorial attractiveness and social cohesion

Always Further - The new library of Alexandria

The center, designed by Snøhetta in 1995, opened to offer the various contents it has: millions of books, an Internet database of references, specialized libraries, museums, a scientific center … Constructed in the framework of a project between Egypt and the Unesco, the library was approximately built on the landmark of the antique library of Alexandria. It should gather around 5 millions of books.

The mission of the new library, chaired by Ismail Serageldin, is to be a center of excellence in the production and dissemination of knowledge and to be a place of dialogue, learning and understanding between cultures and individuals. Indeed, M. Serageldin made it a crucial place of the French-speaking world and a crossroads of various cultures that should meet in order to preserve them better. The objectives of the library aim at recapturing the spirit and the creative engagement of the ancient Library by being a world’s window of Egyptian culture, gathering international knowledge, being a leading institution of the digital age and promoting the diversity of culture.

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Credits: Henk Goossens