Recently, the Beijing Library, constructed by CSCEC, was officially opened to public.
The library has a total floor area of about 75,000 square meters, with three above-ground floors and one below ground. The library houses a collection of 8 million books and has around 2,400 reading seats. It serves as a multifaceted cultural complex integrating functions such as knowledge dissemination, urban think tank, and shared learning.
276 highly transparent glass curtain walls, supported by 144 "ginkgo trees", create a perfect presentation of the world's largest library hall with an area of 21,800 square meters, perfectly presenting the reading ambiance amid the "mountains and forests".
Each glass panel weighs a record-breaking 11.5 tons, making it the heaviest curtain wall glass panel in the world. The 276 "super glass" panels create the first case in China and globally of a self-supporting curtain wall project, capable of withstanding a horizontal displacement of 120mm during a strong earthquake.