Dark clouds over Kaplicky's design of the National Library in Prague

The winner of Czech National Library Competition is already known for a week. The unique design of Jan Kaplicky and his studio Future System competed successfully with 748 architects and architectural teams.

However, there have already been some remarks about the regularity of the competition. The Czech Chamber of Architects claim that Kaplicky broke a binding condition of the competition when he had placed the storage place for more than 10 million books under the ground and not to the overground floors.

According to the director of the National Library in Prague Vlastimil Jezek, the project met all the requirements. What’s more Kaplicky’s design will protect the books perfectly. The storage space could be hermetically closed in several seconds.

Other people claim that the building will break the skyline of Prague. The 48 meters high library will be higher than the neighbouring buildings. Nevertheless, the library needs the building permit from the Department of Historical Monument Care and now it seems there will be no problems with that.