The German State Library in Berlin’s Kulturforum is a huge building with a very deep plan and complex programme. A carefully unfolding sequence of spaces takes the visitor from the main entrance hall via a series of staircases up to a large landing and into the main reading room on the first floor. In this vast space, several galleries look down onto a terraced landscape of study areas and bookshelves. Despite the great scale of the room there is a sense of intimacy that the reader feels working amongst the other readers and books, one is also aware of the larger community appropriate to a National Institution. There is no single focus or point of control in the landscape. Shifting angles in the plan indicate subtle changes in territories, a cloud of circular roof-lights float above and light the space by day and night. Local lighting is organised to articulate the identity of areas within the whole, right down to the task light on each desk.

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