Emerging from earth. Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center
04/06/2019.
Library at University of Cyprus [Nicosia] Cyprus
metalocus, ÁLVARO MUÑOZ
metalocus, ÁLVARO MUÑOZ
The French architecture firm Atelier Jean Nouvel completed Stelios Ioannou Learning Resource Center, at the University of cypriot capital, Nicosia, inaugurated last december.
Envisioned as an ‘object’, the learning resource center — which contains a brand new library — has been captured in new images by architectural photographer Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
"It has been considered as an 'earth-work', a gentle echo in the landscape to the hills which are so characteristic of the plain and particularly to the Aronas, a main silhouette boarding the south side of the site across the Kaloyeros River."
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes "earth-work" library at University of Cyprus. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Jean Nouvel completes ‘Stelios Ioannou’ Learning Resource Center. Photograph by Yiorgis Yerolymbos.
Ground Floor Plan. Jean Nouvel completes "earth-work" library at University of Cyprus.
Second Floor Plan. Jean Nouvel completes "earth-work" library at University of Cyprus.
Third Floor Plan. Jean Nouvel completes "earth-work" library at University of Cyprus.
Section. Jean Nouvel completes "earth-work" library at University of Cyprus.
Rendering. Jean Nouvel completes "earth-work" library at University of Cyprus.
Outside, the Information Centre - Library 'Stelios Ioannou' -named after Cypriot industrialist Stelios Ioannou, is covered with green and blue fabric, with a roof garden located on its flat roof so that it looks like an "abstract composition", conceived as an ‘earth-work’ and designed to look like an artificial hill.
This project is becoming possible due to a major donation of € 8.000.000 from Mrs Elli St. Ioannou, in memory of her late husband Stelios Ioannou. Following the benefactor's request the design of the project was assigned to the renowned French architect Jean Nouvel.
Inside, the Centre is the result of a special design and careful planning and in depth study of the University of Cyprus academic needs and physical environment.
The four-storey building contains a library and will house 1 million printed volumes, - over 30,000 electronic journal titles and 150 databases, an information systems centre, the Center of Technology for Teaching, and a language centre. All information will be accessible throughout the scientific community of Cyprus. It will also provide approximately 900 study seats that will be equipped with modern technology.
Description of project by Olivier Boissière
The Learning Resource Center is planned to occupy the N-E plot of land on the campus of the Athalassa University.
As the other public buildings, the project is envisioned as an “object”. But rather than a “building” it has been considered as an “earth-work”, a gentle echo in the landscape to the hills which are so characteristic of the plain and particularly to the “Aronas”, a main silhouette boarding the south side of the site across the Kaloyeros River.
Beyond the allusion in silhouette, the Learning Resource Center is obviously a man-built object with its layers of colored fabric overlapping upon each other as an abstract composition and the magnificent clear cupola which caps the building.
The Learning Resource Center is positioned along a east-west axis parallel to the belvedere and leaves open the perspective of the Pentadactylos as viewed from the public square through a sort of logical thalweg between the LCR and the future cultural center.
The entrance to the LCR has thus been located on the north-east side so as to affirm the specificity of the public square which is to be linked more directly to the cultural center.
The program calls for a distinction between spaces which require “normal” light and those which need a more subdued lighting such as the ones dealing with computer screens or stacking for instance, whether they belong to the library or to the computer related activities. This and the orientation of the building has led to a distribution of spaces where naturally lit spaces are oriented to the north side with views to the mountain ridge and “obscure” ones face the Aronas with fewer views and carefully oriented ones.
The main concern and most attention has been given in the project to climatic conditions: protection against the sun and a strong commitment to keeping all interiors cool and comfortable have dictated the principles of the project keeping in mind the best use of energy.
The cupola covering the main reading room of the library is delicately set on the “plateau” of the hill and surrounded by a planted terrace.
The LCR is to be envisioned as a hybrid between natural landscape and man-built environment. Plants, shrubs and trees around it and atop of it are carefully selected among the ingenuous flora of the island.
More information
Architects
Ateliers Jean Nouvel. Project leaders.- Philippe Papy, Athina Lazaridou, Damien Faraut, Elisabeth Kather. Architects.- Sébastien Abribat, Jean Angelini, Yves Bachmann, Thomas Dieben, Megan Feehan, Michael Herman, Laurent Pereira, Miguel Pomares, Andres Souza
Collaborators
Advisors to Jean Nouvel.- Emmanuel Blamont, Aurélien Coulanges, Samuel Nageotte. Interior design.- Julien Cottier, Jennifer Kandel, Jéremy Lebarillec, Sabrina Letourneur. Landscape.- Emmanuelle Blanc, Rémy Turquin. Light design.- L'Observatoire – Georges Berne (Studies), then Odile Soudant, Mathieu Gabry. Graphic design / Signage.- Rafaëlle Ishkinazi, Eugénie Robert, Natalie Saccu De Franchi. Local architects.- J+A Philippou. Engineers.- M. Ioannis Cannas (Structure), Avel Acoustique – M. Lamoureux (Acoustic), M. Kyriacos Zinieris, M. Ioannis Mitsides (Building services), Ingelux, Christophe Marty (Lighting design). Consultants.- Mandragore – Lionel Hodier (Landscape – studies), MDA – Peter Zographos (Cost consultant)
Client
University of Cyprus – Dakis Joannou
Area
Habitable area.- 14,800 m² (159,306 sqf)
Surface area.- 17,200 m² (185,139 sqf)
Dates
2003-2018
Program
15 thousand square meters-multiplex, in the form of a hill with a white dome houses five levels, three floors and 900 study areas divided into the Library, the Information Systems Service, the Center of Technology for Teaching, and the Language Center.
Address
Kallipoleos 75, Nicosia 1678, Cyprus
JEAN NOUVEL
Jean Nouvel, (born August 12, 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of Mars 1976 and Syndicat de l'Architecture. He has obtained a number of prestigious distinctions over the course of his career, including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (technically, the prize was awarded for the Institut du Monde Arabe which Nouvel designed), the Wolf Prize in Arts in 2005 and the Pritzker Prize in 2008.
Nouvel was awarded the Pritzker Prize, architecture's highest honour, in 2008, for his work on more than 200 projects, among them, in the words of The New York Times, the "exotically louvered" Arab World Institute, the bullet-shaped and "candy-colored" Torre Agbar in Barcelona, the "muscular" Guthrie Theater with its cantilevered bridge in Minneapolis, and in Paris, the "defiant, mysterious and wildly eccentric" Musée du quai Branly (2006) and the Philharmonie de Paris (a "trip into the unknown" c. 2012).
Pritzker points to several more major works: in Europe, the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art (1994), the Culture and Convention Center in Lucerne (2000), the Opéra Nouvel in Lyon (1993) , Expo 2002 in Switzerland and, under construction, the Copenhagen Concert Hall and the courthouse in Nantes (2000); as well as two tall towers in planning in North America, Tour Verre in New York City and a cancelled condominium tower in Los Angeles. International cultural projects such as the Abu Dhabi Louvre, the Philharmonic Hall in Paris, the Qatar National Museum in Doha, or the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2010 in London.
In its citation, the jury of the Pritzker prize noted:
Of the many phrases that might be used to describe the career of architect Jean Nouvel, foremost are those that emphasize his courageous pursuit of new ideas and his challenge of accepted norms in order to stretch the boundaries of the field. [...] The jury acknowledged the ‘persistence, imagination, exuberance, and, above all, an insatiable urge for creative experimentation’ as qualities abundant in Nouvel’s work.
Among his principal completed projects, we find the Arab World Institute in Paris, the Cartier Foundation and the Quai Branly museum in Paris, the Culture and Congress Center KKL in Lucerne, the extension of the Queen Sofia Arts Center in Madrid, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, the Philharmonic of Paris…
Among the projects currently under studies or under construction: the “53W53, Tour de Verre” integrating the extension of the MoMA galleries in New York, the residential towers “Le Nouvel” in Kuala Lumpur, “Anderson 18” and “Ardmore” in Singapore and “Rosewood” in São Paulo, the office towers “Hekla” and “Duo” in Paris, the cultural complex “The Artists’ Garden” in Qingdao or the National Art Museum of China NAMOC in Beijing… The design of the Louvre Abu Dhabi began in 2006 with Jean Nouvel’s Partner Architect Hala Wardé.
