Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs 39. (1986)
Archive Buildings and the Conservation of Archival Material. An Expert Meeting, held in Vienna, Austria October 30 - November 1, 1985 - BUCHMANN, Wolf: Planning an Archive Building. The Cooperation between Architect and Archivist
Planning an Archive Building 213 Depending on the form of the whole construction, these areas can be defined as separate parts within one edifice. The Public Record Office at Kew might serve as an example for that solution. Due to the special requirements of the repositories it is in my view advisable to plan them as one or several separate blocks — this is the case for the Bundesarchiv. To avoid long journeys within the building between these areas, they have to be linked as closely as possible. It is a challenge to the architect to ensure easy and fast access between each of these areas and, on the other hand, to satisfy all requirements of security by separating them. In the Bundesarchiv building the area for the public covers about 1.700 square metres, which is about 8% of the whole space. All rooms open to the public are concentrated on one level, the level of the main entrance. The six floors for offices with 5.500 square metres, i. e. 24% of the space, are located directly above the entrance hall, similarly the photo-laboratories on the first floor and the laboratories for restoration on the second floor are above the researchers’ rooms. The repositories with 15.800 square metres covering about 68% of the entire space are placed around the researchers’ rooms. Looking at the photo of the model of the Bundesarchiv building, the three areas mentioned can be identified as distinct elements of the construction: the six floor office building as a kind of a barrier forming the front facade of the whole construction, the area for the public on the ground floor surrounding an inner yard with the researchers’ rooms and the three blocks of the stacks surrounding the researchers rooms. 4.2.2 The area for the public comprises the researchers’ rooms, the exhibition-hall, rooms for lectures or meetings and the cafeteria. No access is possible to other parts of the archive building from this area without authorisation. It should be located as close as possible to the main entrance. Within this area the researchers’ rooms are separated again by locked doors which can be opened only by researchers. The researchers prefer to work with natural light in a quiet zone; the windows should not open to a street with traffic noise and air pollution. Special cabins or small rooms for tape recorders or typewriters should be available. The layout of the rooms, the form and location of the tables should ensure an easy supervision of the researchers with a minimum of personnel. A fast service from the repositories and the photolaboratories is necessary. The collections of an archive today comprise different materials, like (paper) records, photographs, microfilms, movie films, maps or posters. Although there are different technical needs, e. g. the use of viewing tables for research in movie films or the use of video discs or cassettes, the rooms for these research procedures should be part of the common research area. In the Bundesarchiv building (see plate 3) a visitor entering the entrance hall can turn to the right to reach the cafeteria; the movie theatre and the hall for
