10 - 16 May 2001
Issue No.533
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 10 - 16 May 2001 Issue No.533 |
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Reviving the future
Monumental efforts and generous international support have helped to resurrect the fabled Bibliotheca Alexandrina, slated to open in September 2002. Dahlia Hammouda traces the rebirth of a cultural landmark
Alongside the University of Alexandria's Faculty of Arts campus in Shatby and overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, an elegant, colossal structure rises in splendour -- the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina.
Alexandria Library
IN ADDITION to the chair, Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, five persons are ex-officio members of the board of trustees -- the minister of higher education, culture, and foreign affairs, the governor of Alexandria and the president of the University of Alexandria. The board will include:
board of trusteesAhmed Kamal Aboul-Magd (Egypt)
Abdel-Latif Al-Hamad (Kuwait)
Hanan Ashrawi (Palestine)
Jacques Attali (France)
Tahar Ben Jelloun (Morocco/France)
Margaret Catley-Carlson (Canada)
Umberto Eco (Italy)
Farouk El-Baz (Egypt/USA)
Vigdis Finnbogadottir (Iceland)
Hans-Peter Geh (Germany)
Stephen Jay Gould (USA)
Yolanda Kakabadse (Ecuador)
Luis Monreal (Spain)
Adele Smith Simmons (USA)
Wole Soyinka (Nigeria)
Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan (India)
Kazuo Takahashi (Japan)
Laila Takla (Egypt)
Carl Tham (Sweden)
Marianna V. Vardinoyannis (Greece)
William Wolf (USA)
Ahmed Zewail (Egypt/USA)In the remarkably short period of six years, the structure has been built, landscaped, and even furnished. With final preparations under way, Mrs Suzanne Mubarak, who headed the international commission for the library's revival, has announced that the official opening of the Alexandria Library will be held on 23 April 2002, which will coincide with International Book Day. Due to open its doors to the public in September 2002, the library has also been given an impressive new board of trustees comprised of 27 prominent national and international figures: 22 chosen members and five Egyptian officials -- the ministers of education, foreign affairs and culture, the governor of Alexandria and the University of Alexandria president.
At a press conference held at the library on 3 May, Mrs Mubarak announced that a board of sponsors peopled with equally illustrious figures has also been chosen for the library. Among the names mentioned are French President Jacques Chirac and Queen Sophia of Spain. A number of other figures will soon be announced. Renowned development specialist Ismail Seraggeddin, formerly the vice president of the World Bank, has been chosen as the library's director.
Fearing that the functions of the library would be prey to crippling bureaucracy, the People's Assembly passed a special law early this year (Law No 1) that puts the library under the president's direct jurisdiction.
The ancient city of Alexandria, one of the glories of antiquity, was at the beginning of the third century BC the birthplace of an ambitious plan to build a grand centre of knowledge: the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, as it was known in ancient times. Both an Egyptian and international enterprise, the library replaced Alexander the Great's thirst for power with a quest for universal knowledge. Later realised by Ptolemy I Soter, the library was not only a repository of books; it was also a museum, a school and a centre for scholarly research.
"During the six hundred years of its existence, it was the world's centre of learning, the promoter of communication and tolerance among peoples and cultures and the beacon that lit the way for the sciences, the arts and the humanities to flourish in the midst of ignorance and superstition," Mrs Mubarak said last Thursday.
In the fourth century AD, disaster struck and the library vanished. Most accounts of its destruction cite a fire that ravaged Alexandria in this period, but what caused the loss of the library and its reported half million volumes is not certain.
In the late 1980s, University of Alexandria scholars were inspired with the same dream that had engulfed Alexander. In conjunction with the Egyptian government and the close cooperation of the United Nations Cultural Organisation UNESCO, they hatched a plan to erect a modern public library in Alexandria that would be a centre for culture, science and academic research. In February 1990, Mrs Mubarak hosted a historic meeting in Aswan attended by heads of state and world dignitaries. It was here that the Aswan Declaration for the Revival of the Ancient Library of Alexandria was signed. The group's mission statement declared that the library would be a witness to a decisive moment in the history of the human spirit.
"Today, our cause is not one of reviving the ancient, however great, or a return to the past," Mrs Mubarak said. "The issue now is primarily the future. The world is awaiting the opening of the first great library in the third millennium -- the first institution of its kind in the age of the technological and communications revolution and a place through which we hope to preserve our unique identity amid sweeping globalistion."
While Egypt has donated the land, the convention centre, the general library expenses and the design and materials for construction, the project has also received generous donations from kings and presidents the world over. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina also has many Friends Associations in various countries, who actively support, promote and raise funds for the library in their respective countries. In addition to the books the library has bought, book contributions have been received from individuals and governments from around the world. Day-to-day financing after the opening is expected to be paid from the state budget, in addition to other sources, such as donations and library fees. UNESCO has embarked on a new campaign to raise funds from individual countries and international organisations for the library's operation expenses.
The library is located on what is believed to be almost the same site of the ancient library-museum complex, which was within the Royal Quarter. The district was then known as the Brocheum and a few remains of the Graeco-Roman civilisation here were recently uncovered. They are expected to be displayed in the library museum. The site, perched along the corniche, offers a sweeping view of the bay. In the distance, hovering at the other end of the circular Eastern Port, one can make out the serene structure of the old Mameluke Citadel of Qait Bey.
The acclaimed design concept for the library -- which is made up of 13 floors over a total floor area of 69,000 square metres -- is a simple circle inclined towards the sea. The inclined roof allows indirect daylight and a clear view of the sea. One third of the structure is underground, with the remaining two-thirds thrusting upwards -- a symbol of the transition of knowledge from the past into the future. Library ideologues have waxed lyrical about the imagery, comparing the design to a rising sun that will illuminate the world and human civilisation. The building is surrounded by a wall covered with Aswan granite engraved with calligraphic letters and inscriptions in languages both ancient and modern. An elevated passageway links the University of Alexandria to the corniche.
Mrs Mubarak and officials admire work accomplished in the Alexandria Library's interior and exterior
photos: Antoune Albert
The impressive structure has been called the "fourth pyramid" by Mrs Mubarak, who will head the library's board of trustees. The library complex includes a conference centre with a 3,200-person seating capacity, a science museum, a planetarium, a school of information studies and a calligraphy institute. Mrs Mubarak said the library will be Egypt's window on the world, laying open to Egyptians the scientific, literary and artistic marvels of Mediterranean cultures, as well as those of the rest of the world.
"We also want it to be the window of the world into our own Egyptian culture and civilisation -- the longest continuous civilisation on earth, with its Pharaonic, Graeco-Roman, Judaeo-Christian, Coptic and Arab-Islamic heritage, and its present day culture," Mrs Mubarak said.
The library is also meant to rise to the challenges of the technological opportunities of the new millennium and the dawning of the digital age. "We want to link up with the programmes of the leading institutions of learning in the world and thus have access to the almost limitless resources available in the world -- as well as make our own contribution available," she said.
One of the library's principal goals, Mrs Mubarak said, is to be a meeting place for cultures and a forum for enlightened dialogue between civilisations, in order to help promote peace, tolerance, respect for differences and the appreciation and protection of cultural diversity.
Alexandria Governor Abdel-Salam Al-Mahgoub said the city of Alexandria has been undergoing constant refurbishments to spruce up the environment of such a formidable institution. Infrastructure in the area has been upgraded and many hotels have been renovated and expanded in order to house the 3,000 invitees due to attend the official opening ceremony next year.
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