Stadsbibliotheek

Waregem treated itself to a new public library, not monumental, but accessible and serviceable. Visitors can read in quiet corners and lose themselves in a landscape of books that unfolds on gentle slopes around a sunken middle area. The roof is given a sculptural form on the inside that allows light to enter in dosed quantities. Together with the colours of the interior, this contributes to the domestic atmosphere of the building. On the outside, it appears to be modest. The low volume with its overhanging roof relates to the surrounding buildings and the ring-road, and forms an urban composition with the blocks of flats which, together with the library, were built as part of a large-scale urban renewal project. The library is at the end of a new boulevard that starts at the town’s administrative and commercial centre, called ‘Het Pand’. In this way, the project gives a contemporary response to an urban planning scar that has dominated the town centre for almost half a century. The integration of the library into the broader urban project is also made evident on the inside. Although it feels like an intimate place, the glass walls draw the urban life in the streets beyond inwards. The underground car park also links ‘Het Pand’ with the library. At the point where this underground link becomes explicit in the library, it gives rise to a captivating architectural element that makes the wider urban narrative intelligible.

Sofie De Caigny

This project is published in Flanders Architectural Review N°13. This Is a Mustard Factory