Architects:
Page Think Architects
Location: Malabo,
Equatorial Guinea
Interior Décor: Page Think Architects
Photographer: Page Think Architects
Website: www.pagethink.com
From the Project Architect:
The Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo Presidential Library and Museum is the first public facility in the country of Equatorial Guinea designed to showcase and preserve presidential documents, photographs, videos and artifacts. Located in the city of Mongomo, the complex includes the 81,000-square-foot Library and a 19,500-square-foot headquarters building for the Obiang Nguema Mbasogo Foundation for Humanism and Peace, designed as an integral part of the Presidential Library.
The Presidential Library comprises five main components arranged along the wings of the H-shaped facility around the entrance grand pavilion: the Museum-Exhibit Gallery, the Presidential Archive Storage and Research Center, the Assembly Areas (including a 250-seat auditorium), a large reception hall, a Presidential conference center and a multi-purpose room, and the Presidential Suite, consisting of a presidential office, living areas, private dining facilities and a bedroom. Service spaces include a full kitchen to serve to special events. The site includes a ceremonial entry for guests and museum visitors with a separate roadway for VIP and Presidential drop-off. Other exterior feature spaces include the building front esplanade, and an exterior sculpture courtyard-corridor leading to a water feature.
The exterior façade of the Presidential library is clad in contrasting tones of Italian travertine hand selected by the architects from the quarries in Tivoli, Italy. Upon arrival, visitors ascend steps of the same vein-cut Travertine to enter the main hall beneath the cover of a travertine clad roof canopy that appears to float over the glass entry wall. Once inside, this high roof canopy continues as the ceiling, flanked by skylights that allow filtered daylight to fall down the interior wall faces of vein cut travertine and fill the space with natural light during the day.
At night, the skylights allow a breathtaking view of the skies above. At the end of the great hall is the entrance to the auditorium featuring a wall of luminous onyx panels. Beyond the great hall and auditorium, visitors enjoy views into a central courtyard through an interior arcade of stone and glass, moving along rich Tropical Olive wood panels that clad the walls of the Ballroom and Stateroom for distinguished guests and visiting heads of state.
Government buildings, in any developing country should set the pace for innovation, technology, sustainability and high-tech solutions for local problems. Located in Malabo, the capital and the largest city of Equatorial Guinea, this project intends to develop an architectonic solution of qual...
Designed for one of the smallest countries in middle Africa, the National Theatre of Equatorial Guinea acts as a cultural hub sited in the city of Oyala- one set to become the capital of an impoverished and ironically oil-rich West African nation. IAD- Independent Architectural Diplomacy, a sp...
If you want your own avatar and keep track of your discussions with the community, sign up to archiDATUM >>
The just completed office complex for Mazars in Johannesburg marks a paradigm shift from the idea of commercial architecture. While it se...
In this project we were required to create an energizing, uplifting work environment by linking a new, high-tech construction to the exis...
Heavy rains brought down the pyramid-shaped wooden school, built on a platform held afloat by hundreds of plastic barrels, on Tuesday. No...
Located on 10ha of a 213ha site in the Ouaga 2000 district, the International conference center project, complemented by an immense urban...
Located in the suburbs of Lagos, Glover 57 Apartments are a superb manifestation of contemporary residential living. Domaine Public Archi...
Religion has the instrinsic ability to influence a creed, and so does architecture. At the heart of the Mouride holy city lies a well cra...