The Building in the International Discourse

Modernism with a difference, that is one way of thinking of the new building.
Whereas Modernism was a quintessentially 20th century phenomenon that was rightly seen as largely spent by the forces of post-modernism in the late twentieth century, the very best of it has been revived, transformed and transcended by this building. Like great buildings of different periods, from Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Pavillion of 1927 to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water of 1936 to Bjorn Utzon`s Sidney Opera House of the 1980s, great buildings are timeless and speak to us through time and space. Like these landmarks, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina could well, with the patina of time, be seen as a true classic.

At a time of “signature architects” and the dominance of capricious form over function, the success of a young team of then-unknown architects and the quality of their design was a challenge to the prevalent mode and fashion in the architectural world. It was… a successful challenge.