A library is a treasury of man’s mental achievements in the form of text and the other types of media. Also it is a place for contemplation and meditation. A library is a space recognized with two concepts: "Contemplation” and "Media". These two concepts act ac the drive of the design.
Contemplation finds different external manifestation in different age groups and therefore requires different formal configurations. On the other hand the media (the book) itself engenders particular formal structure. These ideas have guided us through out the design process.
Three main factors have formed the basis of Shiraz Central Library design:
1. The mystic zone enclosing Hafiz mausoleum nearby the site that has a prominent cultural presence and influences design of different parts of the complex and the subject area.
2. It should be investigated that how this influence can be interpreted in terms of architecture. It is pretty obvious that the architectural expression of the library should address its surrounding area in away or another; the more skillfully this relationship is defined the more durable the resulting architecture would be.
3. The third factor is the concept of library as a mansion amidst the garden. The library building has been considered as the mansion of one of the gardens in the subject area that has the potentials for revitalization. Evidently the library would adhere to spatial concepts of this typology rather than its ornamental details.
The common essence of these three factors can be condensed in to two general concepts that can be used to form the project’s configuration:
A. The past
B. The present and the vision of the future.
How can these two concepts be appropriately presented in response to the program? And secondly how their presence would affect the architecture of the library?
One of the possible solutions is to envisage the solid mass of the building as the representation of the past and crystalline transparent entity as the representation of the present and the future.
The functional structure of the library in general comprises two main parts the reading salons and the book closed storage.
The book storages contain registered thoughts and belong to the realm of the past and are represented by solid mass of the building. The reading rooms a vessel of ever changing and evolving thoughts are designed as a crystalline transparent element.