Richelieu Library, 1995 before big move for the Mitterrand Library.
Without internet, without smartphone, without headphones, only the time of bookmarks, silences that are not, of this smell so characteristic of old books, mixture of ink and dust of knowledge, and even more the sight, the vertiginous Labrouste rooma historic monument with a patina, wooded, fluted, where hundreds of students, researchers, writers and philosophers read, some illuminated by the centuries of enlightenment but above all by green opaline lamps from the 1930s.
2022, good news, Renaissance of the Richelieu library in the 2nd arrondissement.
Double privilege, there will therefore be 2 national libraries of France, on the banks of the Seine in the 13th. 4 towers in the shape of open books, a mini Landes forest within it and the old one since the 17th century, for more specialized readings, the history of art and heritage and more contemporary ones, digital arts and comics .
20,000 books will be available to Ile-de-France residentsfar, very far from the 40 million documents, books, periodicals of the Mitterrand Library.
Now called a cultural quadrilateral, the Richelieu library covers 50,000 squares of considerable renovation, a passage in the city, as the Ministry of Culture points out, two entrances, rue Vivienne and rue de Richelieu. We can read and reread like in the good old days of the National, a diminutive used by many and even by Blaise Cendrars, a paper junky, addicted to reading.
So get high like Blaise Cendrars and after a few good hours of reading in this magnificent shooting room in the Richelieu library, go out in the evening on rue Vivienne and devour more earthly foods. André Gide will not hold it against you, in the magnificent brasseries and bistros of the district, the Bougainville, the Grand Colbert or the Grand Véfour.