Our national library has been enriched with a unique building that shapes books

On 30 July, the new building of the National Széchényi Library (OSZK) Archive Warehouse was inaugurated in Piliscsaba. The investment was carried out by the consortium of WEST HUNGÁRIA BAU Kft. and Zrt. of FEJÉR-B.Á.L., on the basis of the designs of TSPC Csoport and Fejér Tervező és Mérnökiroda Kft., on behalf of the National Asset Management.

The storage area for documents subject to the obligation of long-term preservation (i.e. archiving) is 10,000 square metres, in a warehouse designed to last 100 years. The building will be used to store rope copies, periodicals, microfilms and other library documents received and kept by the OSZK.

This is the message of the building's specific architectural solutions

According to the technical report issued by TSPC Csoport, the building's massing is shaped like a book: the spine of the book is the spine that holds together the internal mechanical-technical functions that supply the building.

The dominant feature of the entrance façade is the perforated finial in the form of an enlarged leaf, which refers to the forest-leaf-woodworking-paper-book process, showing the organic connection with the forest that guards the lonely building, and its perforation suggests the passage of time, the ageing of materials and paper.

The building has been given a special double external protection

The building will also house a restoration and binding workshop and a digitisation centre. Specialised systems will be in place in the storage room to ensure the preservation of documents, such as a lock system, a fire protection system and a support system.

The building's special and unique solutions include the use of fine concrete, limestone and glass from Süttő, as well as copper, which reflects the work of Imre Makovecz and is dark brown or black. Another special solution relates to the security of the house:

"The design team of TSPC has equipped the building with a special double external protection, so that the guarded staff remains safe even if the outer shell is damaged"

– they write in the analysis. As we wrote earlier, TSPC already reported on this during the design phase. that a building unique in the world is being built in Piliscsaba.

81,000 linear metres of shelving in the warehouse to preserve our cultural treasures

Balázs Hankó, Minister for Culture and Innovation, said at the inauguration ceremony that the warehouse, built with government funding of nearly HUF 25 billion, will enable the preservation of our cultural treasures for the next 50 years, with 81,000 metres of shelving. He said that we owe it to our great ancestors to "strengthen, display and elevate" with our public collections everything that preserves and strengthens our national identity, "everything that makes us Hungarian".

Szilárd Demeter, President of the Public Collections Centre of the Hungarian National Museum (MNMKK), said that the new warehouse is not just a building, its designers and builders have created a time machine, or in other words, a "bridge of knowledge between the past and the future". Dávid Rózsa, Director General of the Hungarian National Library, called the warehouse a great temple of national book memory, which now preserves the written Hungarian cultural heritage in the silence of the Pilis.

Strict security applies

The building is a high-security, protected, fenced area: it will have 24-hour security, with special access authorisation and justification required. Due to the stringent requirements of digitisation workflows and data, a data centre security system has been developed to ensure that it remains accessible in the event of a major power failure.

The special security is justified by the fact that irreplaceable museum documents will be stored in the warehouse, and in case of special legal regulations, documents to be evacuated from the central building of the OSZK will also be stored here.

According to the OSZK, until the end of 2026, the so-called "iron copies" of the OSZK's holdings will be moved to the building, which are copies of the received deposit copies that are not for reading room use, but only for preservation. This will also be a geo-redundant long-term preservation of the national library's digital objects, providing a place of enrichment for the nation's memory for more than 50 years.