Interiors: Argentine National Library (Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
This room has may layers of connections, including to my favorite author, Jorge Luis Borges.
It’s been a while since I’ve done an Interiors post, and as I love libraries I decided to return to that subject. This is one of the main reading rooms in the National Library of Argentina (Biblioteca Nacional de la República Argentina or Biblioteca Nacional Mariano Moreno) in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. The modernity of this room, filled with concrete and glass, reflects the Brutalist style of its architect, Clorindo Testa, who designed the library beginning in 1961, though construction did not begin until another decade had passed. You can definitely see a kind of modernity here that was popular in the last third of the 20th century, but there’s also a nod to more traditional library design, especially the green-shaded banker’s lamps over the tables. At center you can also see a photographic mural of the reading room of the old Argentine National Library, originally built in 1901.
