NATIONAL LIBRARY, OMAN

At the centre of the building lies the main Reading Room, an elliptical triple-height space with reading tables and study carrels surrounding three levels of book-stacks. Specialist collection facilities for historic documents and manuscripts, digital and audiovisual material, maps and periodicals are housed in two adjacent curved wings, together with a public exhibition area, bookshop and café, seminar and lecture rooms, a disabilities reading room, collections support and administrative offices.

The design has been inspired by the historic fort architecture that is found throughout Oman, but re-interpreted to produce a contemporary vocabulary. The use of daylight filtered and modified by the use of traditional shading devices and ‘moshrabiyyah’ screens and references to Islamic geometric patterns in both site layout and architectural detail are combined with simple, unadorned forms found in local vernacular buildings.