Museum · Alexandria
Bibliotheca Alexandrina
A library and cultural centre on Alexandria's waterfront, built to revive the ancient Library of Alexandria, with a glass-roofed disc tilted toward the sea and a carved granite wall.
Listen to the guide
The story
The ancient Library of Alexandria arose under the early Ptolemies, planned under Ptolemy I and developed under his son Ptolemy II, and declined gradually over the centuries. In the 1990s Egypt, working with UNESCO, launched a project to revive it, and the Norwegian firm Snøhetta won the international design competition. The new library was officially inaugurated on 16 October 2002; its reading room, at 20,000 square metres, ranks among the largest in the world. It is designed to hold millions of volumes and also houses museums, a manuscript centre, a planetarium and a conference centre.
Good to know
- The building is a tilted circular disc about 160 metres across and up to roughly 32 metres high, its glazed roof sloping toward the sea.
- The granite wall is carved with around 4,000 characters drawn from the world's writing systems.
- The main reading room covers 20,000 square metres and seats about 2,000 readers.
- In 2009 the National Library of France donated about 500,000 books to the library.
- The complex also contains a planetarium, several museums and a manuscript restoration laboratory.
Visiting tips
According to the library's official website: visits, museums and planetarium Sunday to Thursday 9:30 am–5:00 pm; Saturday 10:00 am–2:00 pm (reading areas); Friday closed. Hours and ticketing can change, so please check before visiting.