Ines Miersch-Süß - Libraries and Their Architecture in the 21st Century

Fig. 1: View from the eights floor of Qatar Foundation Headquarters. MSAO FUTURE FOUNDATION

Fig. 2,3: Preview of the Qatar National Library during the Qatar Germany Cultural Year 2017 with Claudia Lux, Ines Miersch-S and friends. MSAO FUTURE FOUNDATION

In the 21st century, we are moving towards a knowledge society. In addition to the growing influence of data and artificial intelligence, human intelligence is becoming much more important.

- Ines Miersch-S -

The first impulses for this book go back to an event in the middle of the Qatar German Cultural Year 2017, which focused on the new Qatar National Library, which was about to open. At this time, the German library expert Claudia Lux was the project manager for the construction of the new National Library in Doha for the Qatar Foundation. I met Claudia Lux between 2009 and 2011 during our time together in Berlin in the project Berliner Schloss Humboldtforum. At this time Claudia Lux was the Director General of the Central and State Library of Berlin and I was the Project Manager responsible for the interior design development of the Humboldtforum, dispositive in the exhibitions of the Staatliche Museen Berlin. The many interfaces between use and architecture were the starting point of our encounter in Berlin and brought us together again in Qatar from 2015. Right at our first re-meeting at the Doha Book Fair in December 2015, we resumed our talks and intensified them during my business stays in Qatar between 2015 and 2018. Our discussions focused on library architecture, Qatar Vision 2030, and the activities of the Qatar Foundation. The Qatar German Cultural Year 2017 finally gave us a cultural occasion and the opportunity to realize our intentions of an event where we would present the ideas of architecture and the library to a broad international as well as Qatari audience. With the permission of the Qatar Foundation, one year before the official opening in 2018, we organized this event as a preview of the Qatar National Library. In the early morning of May 20, 2017, the time had come. We started our tour at the Qatar Foundation headquarters on the visitors terrace on the eighth floor. From here, you have an excellent view of the Education City, which reflects the Qatar Foundations large-scale master plan for Science, Education and Community development. What made me curious from the beginning was this new pun, Community Development. Community Development is being mentioned in the same breath as education and science. Community, Education, and Science are the basic themes of all the so-called Capital Projects of the Qatar Foundation. With Community Building, the Qatar Foundation sets a benchmark for renewal and in this context stands the new Qatar National Library, an architecture for Education, Science, and Community development.

In Qatar everything begins with friendship was therefore the claim of our preview of the new Qatar National Library, which was still under construction. This event, its motto, and the enthusiasm of the people we brought together, their indescribably great interest and the shared joy of information and knowledge, in the architecture and library concept of the Qatar National Library behind and in front of the scenes, can be seen as the moment when this book came to an idea.