Public Library José Hierro, Usera, Madrid
Public Library José Hierro, Usera, Madrid, Ábalos & Herreros.
This building erected in 2002 at the Madrid working class suburb of Usera is a tower of seven stories high in an area which is predominantly residential with constructions of a smaller scale. So there is a great contrast between this and its soundings. The tower is clad in aluminium and it sits on top a concrete plinth of pink-salmon colour, which accentuates even more the tower.
That plinth serves as an access to the library and at the same time it acts as a link between the two roads flanking the site at different levels. In regards to the entry there is in that space a four-storey internal light shaft, and around this lobby the lending library, the department for children and young people and the area of newspapers and magazines.
There are two glazed lifts designed to travel slowly which allows a better appreciation of the tall reading spaces of floors four and six. Traditionally the library program is formed by various autonomous pieces, however the vertical arrangement of this offers the possibility of minimizing services and travel distances therefore simplifying its construction, which permits ample spaces, and the fact that being this construction a tower adds a figurative value to it within the suburb.
This prismatic and figurative volume and this area act as a catalyst linking the two different levels in the block as well as the parks in it. Its cladding is modular and presents vertical openings which select views sometimes distant and other times closer. Also the internal walls are decorated with paper done by Peter Halley which is revealed at times outside permitting an interpretation of what happens in the interior. This library may seem a monument to lecture in its exterior but its interior show us a quiet and spacious place.
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