The UIS Library is as old as the Universidad Industrial de Santander. Since its beginnings in 1948, it has had several locations: the Instituto Técnico Superior Dámaso Zapata, the current Administration 1 building, the old Publications building where Administration 3 now stands and, since 1976, the current facilities on the central campus.
With the University’s General Development Plan, it was decided to give the UIS Library its own exclusive headquarters, and the architect Antonio Moreno González was invited to design the building, whose firm was also in charge of the construction, which began in 1974. It is a modern-style building of some 6,200 square meters.
This building “represents the best of modern architecture, the sober, geometric lines, it is a totally regular rectangle, with very sober features and it is quite functional, it is really a symbol of the university, and the site is the heart of the university campus,” says architect and restorer Antonio José Díaz Ardila.
The material used is “exposed concrete and exposed brick, no more, and granite floors. Modern architecture is identified with a sobriety of finishes, very few finishes and decoration is totally eliminated. Notice that the elements that are removed are structural or are of the same necessity as the internal form. It is not decorative at all, it is not at all elaborate in forms or symbols, but in architecture as functionality”, explains the architect Díaz Ardila.
On other characteristics, this building “is perfectly oriented to the south and to the north: to the south the side we are looking at (main façade) and to the north the back side, which is equally important and is quite blocking from direct sunlight. And on the façade, these concrete elements are sunshades, they are sun protectors and are designed with a size and separation characteristics that prevent the sun from entering the internal spaces,” says Díaz Ardila.
Another of its particularities is its location: “All universities in the world have the library as a central point; to give an example, at the UNAM in Mexico, the building, which is a large mural, is the symbol of the university. That’s why, when you want to highlight a building, you make a public space around it. Here, moreover, adorned by the beautiful sculpture of the Pencils, they give the library a very special atmosphere where students can come, under the trees, in the planters, to sit and wait for a while or to rest after several hours in the library reading or studying,” concludes architect Antonio José Díaz.
A reinforced and totally remodeled library
In a surprising and highly praised work by students, teachers and all those who visit it now, the Central Library underwent a heritage intervention, undertaken by Fabián Camargo Arquitectos. This consisted of structural reinforcement, adaptation of areas and creation of new spaces, modern furnishings, with futuristic design and integral conservation of its original architecture.
The director of the UIS Central Library, Professor Pedro García Obando, emphasized that “last year a very important work was carried out on this structure that had been built nearly 50 years ago: the modernization and reinforcement of the structure in accordance with the country’s new seismic-resistance standards. So, we went from a traditional library to a supremely modern library, which also has increased the number of student workstations: we went from 880 to 1132 workstations; we went from having face-to-face services to technological services for lending books, self-return of books; we went from not having individual study rooms to having 24 rooms and, on each floor, the division that we have was maintained”.
Distribution by floors and sections
Floor 2 is dedicated to basic sciences, floor 3 to social and human sciences and floor 4 to applied sciences, which are engineering. The basement has been fitted out with collections of Nobel Prize winners and the most important book fairs in the country, and this space has been fitted out for the enjoyment of the students.
“We didn’t have study cubicles, now we do; the database room used to have 35 to 40 computers, today we have three independent rooms each with 25 computers. When you enter the library, there is a thematic cultural room that has served us for the exhibition of many events of the academic units, schools, departments and institutes,” says director Pedro García.
On the first floor, at the back, there is a room that is very functional because it doesn’t have books, but it has about 400 seats that allow students with movable boards to sit and work there, especially from the basic cycle of engineering, because we know that between 70 and 80 % of the students who attend the first floor are between the first and fourth semester of the basic cycle of engineering and, therefore, need these boards for their calculus, physics, algebra, etc. tests. In addition, a cafeteria was designed for postgraduate students on the top floor, says the library director.
In the library, the original architecture was preserved, what was done was a modernization of the interior, but the external structure is the same because a central objective was to preserve its architectural origin.
