Bibliotheca Alexandrina
Introduction
The historical Library of Alexandria was built around the year 295 BC by Ptolemaios Soter in the palace quarters.
In 48 BC it was virtually destroyed when Julius Caesar’s troops set fire to the harbour. The fire reached the nearby library. During the fighting in the Jewish uprising against Roman domination in 114 AD and the clashes between the Christians and the Moors in the 4th century the library once against suffered serious damage. There were several versions of the demise of the Library of Alex-andria in the 7th century.
Built on the remains of the old "Great Library" in 2002, and fol-lowing a 13 year planning and building programme, the greatest and architecturally most interesting Egyptian library of the Middle East was opened.
Project
After clearing the 45,000 m² site the building was built in three phases. Four of a total of eleven floors are built below ground level. In this manner the building has a surface area of a sky-scraper being the equivalent of 80,000 m², however it looks low and compact.
The 5000 m² large grounds of the conference centre of the origi-nal Alexandria University were already opened on the 22nd August 1991 by the President Hosni Mubarak. In 2001 it was decided to annex this to the library complex.
The Alexandria Library Conference Centre (ALCC) is a state-of-the-art conference and exhibition centre and is an essential component of the Alexandria Library complex. It consists of four conference halls, four conference rooms, two exhibition halls, a VIP lounge and a VIP conference room.
Brähler ICS
The fittings with the appropriate conference technology are in-stalled by Brähler ICS. The boardroom alone is equipped with 126 mass produced CDSVAN delegate units (MIC/VOTE/INT). The acoustics as well as each delegate unit can be individually adapted via the CDSVAN (volume, treble, bass). Parallel to each unit there is a connection for a laptop with internet access and video con-nection for routing via the main computer to a plasma display to show lists of names or results of voting. It is even possible to have presentations from any individual location in the hall. The equip-ment can be extended to include up to 32 channels. At present OR+ 4 languages can be transmitted. An additional transmission is possible to the guest area via INFRACOM.
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