Municipal Library of Viana do Castelo

Alvaro Siza Vieira – Municipal Library of Viana do Castelo, Portugal, 1994

The New Municipal Library is a white parallelepiped, suspended from the ground, with a square plan and a square patio in the center. On the ground floor there is an area for the public, an area reserved for employees, the consultation room for reserved volumes.
On the first floor there are reading rooms for adults and children. The vertical structure consists of pillars-walls in prestressed reinforced concrete, while the horizontal structure is made up of high, rigid steel beams, to minimize deformations. The beams are then covered with slabs of white cement of varying thickness.
The long horizontal openings bring the building into contact with the river and in the evening, in reverse, with the warm artificial lighting, the whole outside world enters the library. The external stereometry is counterpointed by a fluid internal spatiality, which calls the visitor from one environment to another. Very few, essential materials: in addition to the structure, white plaster, stone and wood.