The French National Library is completed after a 10-year renovation
The French National Library is completed after a 10-year renovation,
Construction has finally ended on the Richelieu site of the National Library of France near the Palais-Royal,
formerly known as the Bibliotheque du Roi after nearly 10 years of renovation.
The site is 300 years old and the facade has been restored, an interior garden installed,
facilities maintained, promoting innovation, modernity and openness to a wider audience.
Project Features
The project is an office and museum, and will continue to host a massive art history and heritage campus,
providing visitors with a place to walk, discover and exchange.
The site is expected to be open to the public in the summer of 2022.
The work carried out in the library is one of the major projects led by the French Ministry of Culture
and Communication with the support of the Ministry of National Education, Higher Education and Research.
The architects responsible for the renovation are Atelier Bruno Gaudin, along with EGIS, CASSO, and 8’18.
Visitors had access to the library on a route from the Louvre to the Opera,
and near the Palais-Royal and Comédie Française.
The French National Library is completed after a 10-year renovation
Its entrances on Rue Vivienne and Rue Richelieu will become the focal point of the city,
inviting passersby to discover an exceptional heritage in the heart of Paris.
The Richelieu site will provide the public with completely redesigned spaces,
including a new museum with a path that tells the story of antiquity to the present day in a chronological and thematic manner.
The massive building has also been renovated to preserve its historic collections
and maintain international standards of safety and accessibility.
After the renovation, more than 20 million documents were preserved in the new library,
and 30,000 square meters of the building’s total of 58,000 square meters were renovated over 10 years.
The first phase of work lasted from 2011 to 2016,
which included renovations to half of the building located along Rue Richelieu.
The renovations included exhibition spaces, a library, a café,
educational spaces and retail stores.
From 2017 to 2021, renovation work was carried out on the half of the building along Rue Vivian,
which includes the Mazarin Gallery, the Oval Room, the King’s Treasury, Vivian Garden and the Museum.
History of the French National Library
The history of the library dates back to the Middle Ages when Charles V began building a royal library in the Louvre Palace,
and this was in the Frankish fourteenth century.
Another important point in the history of the library occurred in 1537 AD during the reign of “Francois I”, when “Ferman of Montpellier” appeared,
who ordered the deposit of a copy of every classification printed in the country in the Royal Library.
During the French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century AD,
a large group of books confiscated by the revolutionaries from the Catholic Church and the aristocracy were added,
and the name of the library was changed to the National Library.
In 1994, the National Library was merged with the newly established French Library,
to become a new unified entity under the name of the French National Library.
