Biblioteca dos Saberes, the cultural heart of Rio de Janeiro

Inspired by the region’s native trees and by the city’s cultural and historical context, the Biblioteca dos Saberes – The House of Knowledge is the new project presented by Kéré Architecture in the Cidade Nova neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, destined to become a major catalyst for the regeneration of this historic district.

Biblioteca dos Saberes, a bridge between Africa and Brazil

Commissioned by the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro and placed at the center of a large urban regeneration initiative, the library rises between the Valongo Wharf, an emblematic site of the African diaspora, and the Little Africa district, the beating heart of Afro-Brazilian culture. It is no coincidence that the project was presented on November 20, Brazil’s National Black Consciousness Day (Dia da Consciência Negra).

With its 40,000 m², the Biblioteca dos Saberes will be Kéré Architecture’s first project in South America and the studio’s second library, following the Gando Primary School in Burkina Faso. As in Gando, the tree represents a place of gathering, shared speech, and the transmission of knowledge. The symbolic heart of the library is the “tree of knowledge”: a vertical cylinder that runs through the building’s three levels, inspired by the native trees of the Tijuca Forest and, at the same time, by the assembly trees of Kéré’s home village. Around it unfolds a sequence of spaces that guides visitors from silence to vitality: reading, sharing, meeting, performing, creating, eating, playing. A choreography of human experience even before a functional arrangement.

On the outside, the building opens up to the city through landscaped terraces, shaded courtyards, outdoor public spaces, a covered amphitheater with a lightweight structure, and a rooftop garden. A pedestrian bridge will connect the library to a monument dedicated to Zumbi dos Palmares, making the link between knowledge, memory, and resistance tangible. The perforated façade, together with the hanging gardens and the central tower, acts as a climatic device: it filters light, promotes natural ventilation, and reduces thermal load.

A house of knowledge where past and future meet

Located on the former Praça Onze, home to Brazil’s first samba school and just steps from Oscar Niemeyer’s Sambadrome, the Biblioteca dos Saberes celebrates Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian heritage, oral traditions, and samba as a living form of knowledge. This is emphasized by Mayor Eduardo Paes, who describes it as “a library of samba and popular wisdom,” capable of reinforcing Rio’s legacy as a UNESCO World Book Capital. Francis Kéré himself echoes this vision: “a house of knowledge where past and future meet under the same roof, open to the city and to the sea that carries its stories into the world.”

In questa architettura, l’Atlantico non è più confine o ferita, ma fiume di patrimoni condivisi, spazio di connessione tra Brasile e Africa, tra memoria e progetto. La Biblioteca dos Saberes non si limita a riqualificare un quartiere: propone un nuovo modo di intendere il ruolo delle istituzioni culturali nel XXI secolo, come luoghi ospitali, capaci di ascoltare, accogliere e restituire senso alle comunità che li abitano.

In this architecture, the Atlantic is no longer a boundary or a wound, but a river of shared heritage — a space of connection between Brazil and Africa, between memory and design. The Biblioteca dos Saberes does not merely regenerate a neighborhood; it proposes a new way of understanding the role of cultural institutions in the 21st century: as welcoming places, capable of listening, embracing, and giving meaning back to the communities that inhabit them.

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