The Scientific Information Center and Academic Library (SICAL) is progressively preparing for the grand opening. The building commissioned in July last year, now is being provided with furnitures and waits for the first volumes of books to be shelved on the new stands.
The SICAL and all the equipment, including furnitures and computers, will be a home of hundred thousands of books, magazines, documents, databases, electronic texts, audiovisual materials and other multimedia. The building is a joint venture of the University of Silesia and the University of Economics in Katowice.
“We are waiting for summer holidays to move the volumes from several locations of the two universities, we will be able to open the Center afterwards. The opening ceremony is planned for the beginning of the new academic year” – says Jadwiga Witek, press spokesman of the SICAL.
The function of the Center – a hybrid library – is not the only one aspect catching attention. The façade, which is made up of red Indian sandstone and 4 004 cavity windows, introduces in an abstractive manner the basic charge of the library: a book storing. A color of the furnitures also refers to the elevation and to the raw concrete exposed inside.
The architecture of the building already wins renown and attains fame. In March this year, the SICAL has been announced the building of the year 2011. The competition was conducted by the most popular Polish portal about architecture – bryla.pl. The best Polish building was chosen by the portal readers. More than ten thousand Internet users voted in the poll. Additionally, before a construction work commenced on the Center, it had been pointed out by the Wallpaper magazine as one of eighteen Polish buildings that “are reshaping the country”. Last year, the Katowice branch of the Association of Polish Architects (SARP) named the SICAL a building of the year of the Silesian Voivodeship.
The Scientific Information Center and Academic Library was designed by the HS99 studio from Koszalin, Poland. The seven-storey building is a 25 meters high and covers a total area of 13 260 sq. meters.
