<Neubau für den Sonderbestand der Universitätsbibliothek Basel und Instandsetzung Bernoullianum, Basel, 2024, Competition 1st prize

Together with VOGT Landscape Architects, Diener & Diener Architects won the Feasibility Design Study “New building for the Inventory of the Basel University Library and renovation of the Bernoullianum”. With the project proposal, urban planning, architecture and open spaces are directly interlinked. It is based on a well-founded, overarching analysis of the urban planning and urban geography of the university district between Petersgraben and Klingelbergstrasse.

The 1950s extension will be demolished, the north side of the Bernoullianum repaired and completed with a precisely fitting extension to form a large urban block. The new, striking library building mediates between the contrasting urban morphologies: the contemporary hospital extension and the historic buildings.

The new extension itself is divided into three “naves”. Connected to the old building with a linkage, the extension is four storeys high. In the middle of the new structure, a transverse span rises up, responding to the change in scale of the future new hospital building. The new northern aisle of the building is only three storeys high. The basilica-like silhouette - as a representative, urban hall building - serves the powerful form of the entire ensemble and a certain independence of the library.

The Bernoullianum and the new building are part of the same area, but the extension along Schönbeinstrasse continuously deviates from the alignment of the old building. The slight twist, the undulation and the materialization of the extension in wood and glass adjust the refraction of light like a fine cut, allowing the historic, fixed structures - the Bernoullianum and the Holsteinerhof, to stand out.

The widening of the street in front of the baroque Holsteinerhof creates a visual link to the hospital park behind it and favors the formation of a “square”, which is an element of a series of new gardens from Hebelstrasse to Mittlere Strasse.

While the Bernoullianum faces Bernoullistrasse, the main façades of the new library address Schönbeinstrasse and Klingelbergstrasse.

The library entrance is located on the sloping street frontage and participates in the open space that widens out towards the square. The second entrance is close to the bus stop on Klingelbergstrasse.

An entrance passage, accentuated by a skylight, crosses the main direction of the block and has direct access to public transport. It is the lively foyer of the library.

With the conversion and activation of the old lecture hall in the Bernoullianum as an open center, as a forum, the current labyrinthine feeling in the old building is dissolved. This forum initiates a coherent sequence of spaces along the longitudinal axis. At the interface with the Bernoullianum, a “new forum” with learning spaces will be created. In this open sequence of rooms, the outer wall of the Bernoullianum can be experienced as the inner wall of the “New Forum”. A large wooden staircase connects the entrance levels of the new building and Bernoullianum. This staircase creates an open event area in the middle of the closed rooms, thanks to which knowledge transfer can step out of the classic auditorium and appeal to a larger audience.

The public spaces, the “Forum” in the Bernoullianum, the “New Forum” and the “Foyer” follow the natural topography. The “Reading Room” and the large seminar room are part of this sequence of rooms.

The “Reading Room” is spanned by a skylight and has a large window at the head facing Hebelstrasse. The high room forms the concentrated, quiet center of the library. The second to fifth floors are the workplaces of the collection department staff. The four actual collection floors are located underground.

The new library building on the side of the Bernoullianum is intended to contribute to the recognition of the entire university ensemble around Petersgraben. In the atmosphere of the new façades, features of the neo-baroque Bernoullianum and the perforated façades of Roland Rohn's Kollegienhaus, which was built in relation to the old university, are to be condensed.

The extension building presents itself as richly relational and abstract with a simple yet shimmering shell. The timber-clad longitudinal walls on Schönbeinstrasse and Klingelbergstrasse are rhythmically structured by waves, with vertical windows set into them and arranged in groups as in the discreet joint pattern of the flat travertine façade of the Kollegienhaus. The façades of the higher transverse bar interweave windows, façade supports and photovoltaic elements to form a grid-like structure. On Hebelstrasse, the façade is dominated by the opening for lighting the reading room and seminar room.

The interplay of wall and openings is kept as simple as the façades of Johann Jakob Stehlin's wing buildings, which adjoin the central building and emphasize sobriety and clarity as the basic features of the scientific disciplines. The form with the basilica motif has something noble about it. At the same time, the wooden frame is reminiscent of hall buildings and thus also of production facilities. The light ochre hue of the new façades echoes the restrained colors of the Bernoullianum's façade panels.