AZ ORSZÁGOS SZÉCHÉNYI KÖNYVTÁR ÉVKÖNYVE 1961-1962. Budapest (1963)

I. A könyvtár életéből - Farkas László-Havassy Pál-Tombor Tibor: A nemzeti könyvtár új épülete a Budavári Palotában - New accomodation for the National Library in Budavár Palace

the large number of visitors not only from Castle Hill, but also from "below", from themain traffic route in Buda. The original idea was to open a new portal for reader traffic on the western side, on the level of Dózsa György Place, in the East-West central main axis of the building, and to construct therefrom in the line of the main axis a wide access tunnel the eastern end of which would have widened into a large hall. Express lifts would have been there at the disposal of the readers to convey them to the large hall at Lions Court. Detailed surveys revealed howeever, that the engineering solutions required for the realization of this plan would involve excessive costs. A more simple and less expensive alternative was found necessary. The unavoidable lower entrance was eventually solved by situating the new ascent in the northwestern corner of the building, where a system of express lifts consisting of three units will, be provided to transfer the readers and employees of the Library to the fifth floor. The upper terminal of the lifts on the fifth floor will be connected by a wide corridor with Lions Court and thus with the main entrance of the Library. í Postal and freight traffic will be directed to the entrance opening from the large terrace on the northern slope of Castle Hill at the elevation of the third floor. During the working out of the general layout plan of library rooms, the method followed was to arrange first the functional units (magazines, readers service, processing rooms, workshops). This functional plan was hereafter adjusted to the organizational structure of the Library and allowance was made within both aspects for the particular requirements of each operation. A primary requirement to be fulfilled by the room allocation plan was to accommodate adjacent to each other the units which are related either in a functional, or organizational manner, and to ensure that the sequence of the rooms should be the one defined by the processes particular to library operation, namely the travel of the book and the movements of the reader. The rooms open to the reader should form a self-contained block, which is readily accessible to the reading public. Magazines should be readily and conveniently accessible from both the processing and the reading rooms. This requirement calls for centrally located storage facilities. The entire large book-magazine block is situated in the two internal courts of the building and in the space connecting these two courts under the large entrance hall at the second and third floor levels. Magazine towers are planned within each of the two internal courts, but instead of extending to the full height of the building these reach up to the seventh flooronly. The courts, including the magazine towers, as well as the central large staircase space will be covered by a massive reinforced concrete slab at the elevation of the seventh floor, above which reading rooms will be established. Each of the magazine towers will comprise eleven storage floors. The four lower floors of the two magazine towers, furnished with compact storage equipment will be interconnected at the second and third floor levels of the building and thus a coherent central magazine block

—"U" shaped in plan

—will be formed. No windows are contemplated for this magazine b ock, clean air of the desired temperature and humidity being supplied by an air conditioning installation. Two, four-level magazines, one on the third and fourth building floors in the eastern wing, facing Lions Court, and one on the first and second floors on the western side of the building will connect to the central magazine. Further storage opportunity will be provided imm ediately under the roof which will have a fire proof cunstruction. Various floors of the magazine towers are interconnected to an organic unit by service stairways, personnel and cargo lifts, as well as book lifts. The magazines within the building will occupy a total floor space of about 15.000 sq. m. Storage rooms will have a clear height of 210 cm. Storage shelves of over 100 km total length can be accomodated within these magazines, sufficient for storing the stock of the National Library during the coming 40—50 years. From the functional point of view it has deemed preferable to allocate for the purposes of public service the large central hall, occupying the center of the building, the spaces adjoining it immediately from above and laterally, further the western and eastern flights of the building forming an organic unit with the central area

—-with the restriction however, that the public service should not extend below the fifth floor level, i.e., the ground-floor level on the Lions Court side. Public functions on the fifth floor are served by the large entrance hall, the information, registering stations and the wardrobe accommodated there, the representative staircase, as well as by the reading and reference room for the Department of Pamphlets situated in the eastern flight of the northern wing of the building. The area devoted 105