By Nicole Baartman

The Book Mountain is a building with a mission: to encourage a town populated by the least enthusiastic readers in the Netherlands to switch off their televisions and start reading books again. This biography of the Book Mountain paints a picture of the town of Spijkenisse and the political and social contexts in which such buildings are realized. The story also examines the role of the modern library, the essence of a Ville Nouvelle and the search for an alternative for identification - and whether or not this should be done through historicizing architecture. The book is the second in a new experimental series created by MVRDV describing, in considerable detail, the complex process of realising a building from start to finish. Written in an accessible style by independent author and journalist Nicoline Baartman, the story follows the building, its context and the various protagonists who aided and abetted its realisation : from the NIMBY’s to the new-town whisperer, the good moments and the many difficulties.

Rotterdam, 2013, 21.8 x 15.8cm, illustrated, 440 pp. Hardback.