The jury of the National Library of the Islamic Republic of Iran design competition concluded its work in August 1995 by delivering its verdict to the Organization for Government and Public Buildings and Installations, thus closing the file on the second major architectural competition since the Revolution. Given the national and international significance of this library, the Organization invited several distinguished engineering firms to participate in a limited competition for the architectural design of the project. The designers were asked not only to respond to the complex program requirements, but also—employing contemporary technology and engineering methods—to create a memorable work in the tradition of the illustrious technical and artistic heritage of Iranian-Islamic architecture. Messrs. Mohammad Beheshti, Mehdi Chamran, Baqer Ayatollahzadeh Shirazi, Serajoddin Kazerouni, Mohammad Hossein Momeni, Hadi Nadimi, and Seyed Reza Hashemi were selected as members of the jury. After reviewing and debating the proposals and studying the technical evaluation reports from structural, mechanical, and library science experts, the jury unanimously selected the design by Pirraz Consulting Engineers as the winning entry. Farhad Ahmadi's design for this competition endeavored to achieve a symbolic composition while responding to the spatial needs, respecting constraints, and honoring the existing values of the site. This design emphasizes two key elements of the project—the site and the required functions and spaces: A) The Site: The site possesses the following principal characteristics upon which the design was developed: 1. The site expresses itself through successive undulations. 2. The level of the project site is considerably lower than the proposed plaza, which serves as the primary connecting element. 3. The form of the plot arises from a combination of a semicircle and a rectangle perpendicular to the plaza's edge, while a roughly square extension on the eastern side destabilizes the symmetry of the main portion; moreover, the main entrance from the plaza side occurs along an axis close to the site's eastern edge. Consequently, the site's form results from a combination of geometric order and the irregularity arising from truncated and appended sections and their connection to the plaza. B) The required functions and spaces in this project's design are categorized as follows: 1. The library, comprising units 1, 2, and 6, considered the main and central section. 2. The library support section (unit 3), ranking second and related to the first section, positioned alongside the plaza. 3. The management and maintenance section, consolidated as a complex beside the plaza. 4. The education section and the School of Library Science, serving as an intermediary between the plaza and the project site. C) The arrangement of volumes, in light of the above considerations and intended meanings, was shaped as follows: 1. A perfect cube with sides measuring 12 modules, from which a cube of 6-module proportions has been subtracted, housing the management and maintenance section. The cube, possessing six faces corresponding to the six cardinal directions—an abstraction of earthly spatial attributes—is anchored stably at the intersection of the connecting axis and the plaza's edge, at the origin of the coordinate axes.
2. An elongated rectangular prism stretching like a bridge along the length of the site, providing the primary connection between the plaza and the complex, and accommodating the support section. This pathway, set perpendicular to the plaza along the axis of the proposed gateway, expresses a road and movement along a clear trajectory above the landscape. At its midpoint, it encounters a diagonal axis and connects with the natural terrain, prompting a pause for reflection. At its far end, while the bridge continues its extension into the library's research center, it passes beyond the project boundary.
3. A rectangular prism with a square base and a thin profile, scaled at 12 in length, width, and height, from which portions have been subtracted by a diagonal axis on one side and the waves of nature on the other. This volume houses the library and the book repository. This rectangular prism stands suspended above the ground like a fragment of a brick or a tablet set level with the plaza: along its outer edge lies the repository, and within it, the research library—like an inverted ziggurat—gazes toward the center of the square. At the center of this square, along the vertical axis, a cylinder of light is positioned, giving life to the central walls. Around this cylinder, two symmetrical muqarnas face each other in inverse: the upper muqarnas, opaque and white, rises from the surface of the tablet or plaza upward, oriented toward the perfect cube and the bridge's axis. This muqarnas is enclosed by a ziggurat with a semicircular base, thus allowing the penetration and reflection of ample light without direct exposure at the tablet's center. The lower muqarnas, with a glass surface, forms the interior walls of the research library in inverted fashion, thereby guiding natural light inward. At the base of the inverted muqarnas rests a rosette that provides a latticed vault for the library's entrance hall. Beneath these structural patterns, a spiral rotation on an octagonal ground emerges, identical for all three yet each manifesting a different volumetric expression. The octagon—a form without tension, a symbol of the world beyond—engenders concentration at the center. This geometry encircles the cylinder of light, its contours oscillating toward the walls of the square, arranging the liveliest section—the center of gathering and communication—around the axis of light, the research and study area in the second layer, and the dormant repository of information in the third. The first two layers are governed by the octagonal form at the center, while the outer layer tends toward the square of the perimeter. The placement of this prism (the tablet) within the site is semi-active, such that its diagonals run parallel to the site's edges. The tablet has departed from a state of stasis but is fixed in a familiar orientation. The new angle places the form between stability and movement, signifying a transformation from the first cube or the original state—a condition brought about by the penetration of light and the octagonal halo. This tablet, whose inscription is a vertical ray of light etched upon its center, rests on a transparent layer that mediates between the volume and the earthly ground, expressing its freedom from gravity. Within this transparent layer lies the public library, with cuts into the earth accommodating service areas in the layer below. The ground surface, shaped as a circular terrace separating a portion of the land, serves as the resting place for the square tablet. This circle, altered by its encounter with the natural terrain, has lost its regular geometry. Above the tablet and around the half-muqarnas rises a tall pyramid with an octagonal base, its apex continuing the cylinder of light and intensifying the upward movement toward the sky. On the pyramid's outer face sits a ziggurat with a semicircular base, housing the Book Museum. In the lower layer of the tablet—the transparent section—lie the public library and the entrance hall. The diagonal axis, with its crystalline rod beginning its journey from within the perfect cube, crosses the bridge at the gateway, passes through the natural landscape, and ultimately pierces the tablet prism. After traversing it, the axis penetrates the lower level of the terrace, which contains the auditoriums, the teahouse, the research center, and the Hall of Iran and Islam.
The main entrance to the research center is at the end of the bridge, through a vertical shaft inspired by the minaret of Firuzabad or the Mosque of Samarra. In the Hall of Iran and Islam, two specimens of domed structures—one from the Sasanian era and one from the Seljuk period—have been bisected and placed side by side. The dividing layer is a thick glass with a high reflectivity coefficient, so that from within each hall, the other hall and the image of the other dome's section become visible. 4. Another element is half of a bridge whose stepped footings bring the plaza's surface down to the natural undulations, creating the threshold where the plaza transforms into the project site—as though everything fleeing the plaza's edge cascades like a fluid over the stairway of this bridge. This element houses the educational center. The distinctive character of the natural terrain on the site is of great importance; efforts were made to preserve it as much as possible within the complex as a symbol of creation, shaping the overall composition around it. For this reason, the greater part of the project site has been maintained in its natural state, and the footprint has been reduced to a minimum. A path inspired by the arabesque scroll begins at the foot of the bridge stairway, and after rising and falling over the protected natural ground, it cuts through the path of reason while, in dialogue with the axis of mysticism in the layer below, carries the waves of nature to the edge of the tablet, creating a fissure within it and fashioning a forecourt upon it. (The "Path of Providence"—a free and natural connection from the plaza to the library.) Another element, the diagonal axis with the crystalline rod, is a connecting element between two realms—a glass corridor that intensifies the entrance element, forges a path to the library, and links the sections of the complex. The fissure created in the tablet is bordered on one side by a transparent rod guiding visitors and on the other by the free-form cut of nature's waves, producing a throat-like forecourt between closed and open space, leading to the central hall. A ramp, formed by the collision of nature's waves with the tablet's inner body, connects the upper surface of the tablet to the forecourt.