NATIONAL LIBRARY PJETËR-BOGDANI

The National Library (Biblioteka Kombëtare Pjetër Bogdani, Narodna biblioteka Kosova Petar Bogdani), located on the university campus, is the most famous building in the city. This huge modernist structure dating from the socialist period (1982) is distinguished by its 99 domes and its facade of cubes covered with an aluminium lattice.

History. The first libraries in Kosovo were created by Serbian monasteries that built up collections of manuscripts from the 12th century onwards. The Ottoman notables opened private collections from the 16th century, such as the Suzi Celebiu Library in Prizren (1513). The first major public library was founded under Tito with the Regional Library of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo (1944-1952). This was gradually transformed into a "national regional" library and then into a university library. It was renamed the National and University Library of Kosovo in 1999, and in 2014 was renamed in honor of Pjetër Bogdani (c. 1630-1689), considered the author of the first prose book written in part in Albanian, Cuneus Prophetarum(The Cohort of Prophets, 1685). It now houses 1.8 million documents, including about 400,000 books. The oldest work is a biography of Skanderbeg written in Latin in 1508 by Marin Barleti, a Catholic priest from Shkodra (Albania).

Building. The building is in the "modernist-metabolist" style and is the work of the Croatian architect Andrija Mutnjaković (born 1929). It was built between 1971 and 1981, commissioned by the Yugoslav state and was his first and most ambitious project. He conceived it as a synthesis of Serbian-Byzantine and Ottoman architecture in Kosovo. For the 73 domes, he was inspired by the three domes of the churches of the Serbian patriarchal monastery in Peć and the eleven domes of the Gazi Mehmed Pasha hammam in Prizren. And, for the cubic forms of the facades, he took his cues from the naos of the church of the Gračanica monastery and the prayer hall of the Imperial Mosque in Pristina. The result is surprising and has provoked mixed reactions. Most locals see the domes as a reproduction of the traditional white felt cap of the northern Albanians (the fold). Hated by Serbian nationalists, the building was even listed as one of the "30 most awful monuments in the world" by the British newspaper The Telegraph (which presents it as dating from 1944, but never mind). We love it. And so do the 5,000 students who visit the library every day.

Visit. The interior of the building covers 16,500^m2. The 99 translucent acrylic fiber domes, in three different sizes, and the aluminum lattice cladding provide soft, natural light for the various reading rooms. The interior was slightly damaged when the building was used as a headquarters by Yugoslav forces in 1998-1999. But the atrium, which serves as a reception hall, is superb with its coloured marble rosette created by the Kosovar artist Simon Shiroka (1927-1994), its copper spiral decorations and its large central dome. It serves two auditoriums (150 and 75 seats), two large reading rooms (300 and 100 seats), a reading room for periodicals, several specialized rooms for researchers and a small space for temporary exhibitions.