The Building as Intellectual Statement

Great architecture always engages us to rethink the meaning of architecture. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina certainly does that. It reminds us that great architecture is more than function, more than form. It can interpret an idea. Visitors to this remarkable building, will, I think agree that it epitomizes the feelings we should have in a center of culture. It invites the spirit to soar. It enjoins the mind to explore and to listen to the better angels of our nature, to be true to ourselves and open to the other. That is what great architecture can do.