After a twenty-minute presentation full of wits and persuasive facts during which the architect hosted his guests with coffee and champaigne, the councillors asked questions that are also of public interest. Czech ex-president Václav Havel was also present at the meeting which he watched from places reserved for the public.
Library outside the city centre? Nonsense.
A lot of questions concerned the height of the building and its location. The possibility to move the library outside the city centre was spoken about. Find a place in Europe or in the world where there is the National Library on the outskirts. It does not exist. Kaplický said in his reply. He backed up his answer with many examples from Riga and London to Paris.
Most of the place for 10 million books with a reserve of another 5 million is planned to be underground, otherwise the building would have to have twenty floors. That is why Kaplicky’s project goes deep underground and the height should roughly correspond to the height of the National Theatre. In comparison to Sparta Stadium the National Library will hardly be noticeable.
The question of finances was also dealt with, however, as mayor Pavel Bém remarked, it is not the business of the city. The city gave the National Library a piece of land on Letna for an estimated price not for the actual market price, so the 30 million is a contribution of the city. The rest is the State’s business. Yet it does not mean that anything can be built in that area, added Bem.
Fight for the skyline of the City
Miloslav Ludvik, a councillor and the director of Motol Hospital pointed out that Prague is one of the last European cities with a preserved skyline and asked what is Mr Kaplicky’s attitude to the panorama of the city, to St Vitus Cathedral or the Royal Summerhouse of Queen Anna. Jan Kaplicky said that the Royal Summerhouse in particular is one of his favourite buildings and that he believes that the library would not disturb its visual aspect. He also answered questions concerning the durability of the building, possibilities of its reparation, etc. He reckons that the building would last more that fifty years and he supported his assertion with the example of the mosaic in St Vitus Cathedral which consists of glass similarly to a part of the library.
The presentation was concluded by Mayor Pavel Bém who stated that a part of the next meeting about the library will be its further visualization, e.g. a winter view of the library from different points in Prague. Another important aspect will be the opinion of preservationists and UNESCO, whose representatives, however were members of the jury.
Healthy debate
A debate is always good and nobody was trying to incite it for or against, which is important. It is an expression of democracy, said Jan Kaplicky. Also ex-president Václav Havel appreciated that the debate was not carried out in a confrontation spirit. It was very good that the councillors had the opportunity to become more familiar with the library, said Havel who supports the library.
The debate in the council was another contribution to the talks of expert groups on legal, architectural, preservationist building and financial points of view.