Rolex Learning Center

Barely five weeks after the opening of the Rolex Learning Center, the verdict fell—the building’s architects, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (SAANA), were announced the winners of the 2010 Pritzker Prize, the most prestigious prize in architecture. The jury celebrated an “…architecture that is simultaneously delicate and powerful, precise and fluid, ingenious but not overly or overtly clever; for the creation of buildings that successfully interact with their contexts and the activities they contain, creating a sense of fullness and experiential richness”. At the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), the Japanese architects’ unique procédure allowed for a dream to become a reality by creating what one might call the first “enhanced library.” A building, a new heart for the campus , that gathers together all the different forms of knowledge access and exchange in one open space. A place for life as well; where a new rapport between the exterior and the interior is established. The list of technical challenges inherent in the construction of this gently sleeping giant, undulating over 160 meters, is almost infinite. Its construction unceasingly forced engineers and builders to imagine new solutions. This book tells the story of the genesis of the Rolex Learning Center—it opens the door to a revolution in knowledge access.