Eberswalde Technical School Library

The technical school is spread across a group of nineteenth century buildings of very different size and style, on a site with a fine old layout of trees and a small river. Before the Second World War it was an outstanding forestry training centre, and it is now recovering its former importance.

The new library is a simple rectangular building with three similar floors of open-access shelves, linked by a glazed connection to a historic building that holds the administration and stored books. Outside it recalls a warehouse made of three stacked containers, an effect of the wide glass bands that wrap the facade between the floors and bring clear daylight deep inside, while small windows match the individual workplaces.

The precast concrete panels and the glass bands are screen-printed with images chosen by the artist Thomas Ruff from magazines he had collected over the years, arranged in horizontal bands around the building. The printing unifies the whole surface so that the difference between concrete and glass almost disappears.