Sunset at BNF

The story behind the photo

The four towers of the Bibliothèque nationale at sunset, seen from the other bank of the Seine, beyond a roadway where the passing traffic is only a blur. The towers are lined up across the upper half of the frame; the lower part is asphalt, street lamps and passing vehicles, and giving the road that much room is deliberate.

I wanted the scale of the approach rather than a portrait of the building. Photographed from the esplanade, the library is four glass slabs and nothing else. Photographed from the road, with the lamps marching away, it becomes what it actually is: a piece of urban planning, a very large gesture at the edge of the city.

The light is low and orange and comes from the side, lighting the faces of the towers while leaving the street in shadow. At this hour the glass stops being transparent and starts reflecting the sky, the only moment of the day when these facades have any colour of their own.

Dominique Perrault designed them as four open books standing on end, and the design was criticised for years, not least for putting the books in the towers and the readers underground. Whatever one thinks of it, the silhouette is now part of the eastern skyline.

I wanted a photograph about the distance a building keeps from the people who use it, and about a sunset that flatters even architecture that was not designed for it.