MIES MEMORIAL LIBRARY by DRIMS

The project consists on bulding the “MIES MEMORIAL LIBRARY”, a new library in wich the archives of the work collections of Mies van der Rohe will be stored in the IIT Campus, Chicago. Our building is placed on the smallholding “2”, surrounded by a series of pedestrian paths and two buildings of Mies van der Rohe: the Crown Hall and the Siegel Hall.
Our team suggests an operation that interacts with Mies van der Rohe’s work through contrast building a colorfull and organic roof. Through these characteristics we highlight the differences of our project and Mies´s work. The building burys itself on the ground, leaving only visible the roof wich generates urban spaces. The roof is also visible from the inside.
The access is done across one of the waves from the roof. In the inside, the bulding has three floors that are conected through a ramp that starts in the street level and ends up in the auditorium, eight metres below the access. This ramp generates an axis in wich side we find the public reading area (floor -1) and the private archive (floor -2). The sides of the roof are closed with glass that lighten up the inside with overhead light. Complementing this light, we find some colored glass openings on the roof.
The drawing of the roof is based in the organic pattern of the trees in Campus. This pattern occasionally reflects on the public reading floor, breaking the orthogonal order. These drawings become private reading rooms that are sometimes closed with glass walls.
On the last level we find three different uses: the auditorium, the bathrooms and the private archive, all organised through a hall with double height that allows the vision of the roof. In the archive we find some new private work rooms. The auditorium has a wavy roof that covers up the colorfull buildg roof.
To sum up, the project wants to create functional and attractive spaces through references from organic forms, the catalan “trencadís” and the work of architects like Enric Miralles or SANAA. From Mies we take as inspiration the Neue Nationalgalery in Berlin.