Located on the Sharjah International Airport Road, ten kilometres from the city centre, is the recently opened House of Wisdom, designed by UK architecture practice Foster + Partners – which already holds a number of high-profile regional projects under its belt, with more currently in the pipeline.
“[The brief for the building was], very simply, to create a library for the future – one that would allow people to gather, learn and exchange ideas,” Gerard Evenden, Head of Studio at Foster + Partners tells identity. “The project was initially referred to as the Digital Library but through our research we found many parallels with the original House of Wisdom, which was set up in Persia in the fourth century as a place for scholars to exchange ideas. We had some great conversations with the client, Her Royal Highness Sheikha Bodour, and her team about how the aims of the building had many parallels with one of the world’s earliest scholarly institutions, which informed the design process.”
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Esta historia es de la edición March 2021 de Identity.
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