New building for the Main Library, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

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The project provided for the construction of an exclusively underground wing on the north-east side of the existing Main Library (designed by Papaioannou and Fines in 1960). The composition is deployed symmetrically around a cylindrical atrium intersected by the main access route to the interior of the library and a pedestrian walkway running laterally to the old building. The curving outer wall of the new building and the elevation of the old structure combine to create another pedestrian walkway, which is part of the general system of movement around the campus.

Awards and honours
Selected by the Hellenic Institute of Architecture and the Deutsches Architektur Museum among the 130 most important buildings of the 20th century in Greece and included in the exhibition and Catalogue “20th Century Architecture: Greece”, 1999 and also for the exhibition On: the Modern and the Contemporary  in European and Japanese Culture, Tokyo, 2006

Awarded, by an international jury, the first prize of the Hellenic Institute of Architecture “Architecture 2000”, as the best public building in Greece of the period 1995-1999.

Project Details
A. Kotsiopoulos, M. Papanikolaou, I. Sakellaridou
Collaborator: A. Economidou 
Civil engineers: P. Panagiotopoulos, C. Bisbos – H. Mylonas, P. Antoniadou
E/M engineer: S. Kolokontes
Total area:4.500 sm
Design 1991-1995
End of construction: 1999