Philological Library

The Philologische Bibliothek of the Free University Berlin, completed by Norman Foster in 2005 in suburban Dahlem, was quickly nicknamed the Berlin Brain. The design tops the open reading decks with an egg-shaped aluminium-and-glass shell that filters daylight through perforated glass-fibre cells. Foster slotted the building into a tight gap between Henselmann's and Candilis's 1960s university buildings and built in natural ventilation, sharply reducing energy demand compared with a conventional library. The collection covers eleven philologies, from English to Slavic studies. Walking over from Thielplatz U-Bahn, you find a surprisingly compact box from outside, but inside six fanned reading levels under soft indirect light where Berlin's students grind through exam weeks.