Four glass towers shaped like open books rise from a wooden deck in the thirteenth arrondissement. Architect Dominique Perrault designed these towers to hold millions of volumes, but the glass walls let in so much light that librarians had to install giant wooden shutters to protect the fragile pages inside. Before the library opened in nineteen ninety-six, Francois Mitterrand announced the project as a massive cultural statement. The towers now stand as the primary site for the national library of France.
Bibliothèque nationale de France
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