Brežice Public Library

The Brežice library’s roots go back to the year 1880, and it began to officially operate in 1945. The library kept growing despite numerous relocations to new premises and different organizational forms. Today it serves the area of Brežice municipality, with 24.500 inhabitants, and also offers basic services to people beyond its borders. This house of wisdom is a meeting point for multiple generations. The library collection covers over 100.000 items. However, it’s not just a place for housing books but a multi-purpose learning centre offering: computer literacy, reading culture, homeland material, lifelong learning and official library events.

On entering the library, there is the central circulation desk with a self-service book borrowing machine. The entrance area has selected books on the walls, a literature collection and an AV-collection in the adult section. The service has been upgraded by the RFID technology.

Books and non-book material for children are located on the ground floor. This is also the area for the so called Mini Bologna – a permanent exhibition of youth books in foreign languages. The collection consists of 505 rich illustrated youth books from 44 countries. The books inform children about foreign cultures, and languages and provide scripts in the original form as well.

In the upper floor there is the adult section, reference and homeland collections, self-study points and e-library. The department of professional books houses a permanent collection of the local recognized Slovenian language expert, academic Jože Toporišič, PhD. The library visitors meet in a multi-purpose hall named after Savica Zorko, the library’s first manager.

Title of library in local language

Knjižnica Brežice

Year of completion

2006

Address

Trg Jožeta Toporišiča 1, 8250 Brežice

Size of library:

2029m²

Category of library

Public Library

Awards and recommended reading

Kozinc, Željko (2007) Vrata v vse čase (Doors to the past, present and future)
Po desetletjih rasti razcvet (2006)

Architectural idea or principle

The design concept connects the original and new. Outside and inside, function and design aim to connect the old part of the building with the new extension.

Interior design

Nataša Filipčić, Univ. Grad. Arch.

Special features, internal

The area’s fluidity with its basic concept of general connection and intensive communication between external and internal becomes quickly understood. The same connecting elements define the building’s exterior and interior, all elements – paving, choice of colours, furniture design, follow the design’s theme: to appear as scattered objects in the room rather than one that dominates or divides.

Special features, external

The design of connecting elements (connecting walls and roofs, boards, cornice, glass windows) is emphasized with the words of Oton Župančič written on the corner glass wall of the entrance:
Here, here life’s veins meet,
The ways of the universe criss-cross here …