Carmody Groarke team beats stellar shortlist to win French national library job

Project backer Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) and OPPIC (the French ministry of public project management) chose the team ahead of Dutch stars OMA with DATA architects, French big-hitter Philippe Prost and RSHP – which is currently leading on the extension of the British Library in London’s Euston.

The new archive facility, earmarked for the former Amiens hospital north site, will house items from its ever-growing collection, which comprises more than 40 million documents, including 15 million books and journals, as well as manuscripts, prints, photographs, maps, coins, medals, videos and sound recordings. The collection is currently stored within two central locations in Paris and a network of smaller sites throughout the city.

According to the team, the facilities ‘have struggled to keep apace with evolving standards of collection care, and the repositories are projected to reach capacity’.

The proposed 11,000m² masterplan features a 180m-long airtight and ‘passive’ archive building for collection storage and a separate timber-framed office block where staff can work on digitisation and care of the documents.

The archive building, with a steel exoskeleton encased in stainless steel mesh, will contain a massive single room with fully automated storage and retrieval systems operated by robots.

It is expected to provide more than 280 linear kilometres of storage space within a low-oxygen environment to protect the collection from fire and water damage.

A viewing gallery into the west end of the building will afford visitors the chance to look into the archive and watch the robotic automation systems in action.

The project, which marks Carmody Groarke’s debut in France, is expected to start on site in spring 2026 for completion by 2029.

The practice is already working on a new archive building for the British Library in Boston Spa, Yorkshire, which includes refurbishing the existing 1970s Brutalist buildings and building a huge new automated storage building with public viewing gallery.

Source:Judie Wang

Project data

Client Bibliothèque Nationale de France
Public authority developer OPPIC
Architects TVK, Carmody Groarke
Landscape architect Atelier Roberta
Structural engineer EVP
M&E engineer Ingerop
Cost consultant VPEAS
Specialist M&E engineering Buro Happold
Robotics and automation specialist Willhey