Turkmenistan was considered one of the smallest and least developed republics of the former USSR. According to the common practice of the postwar decades, the main architectural objects here should be built according to plans by architects from Moscow, Leningrad, or even Tashkent. However, the chief architect of the capital Ashgabat from 1961 to 1987, Abdullah Akhmedov, broke this tradition. In his opinion, architecture should be pro- duced in situ by local authors. … The light and rational structure turned into a philosophical and almost mystical temple of knowledge. Excerpt from Boris Chukhovich’s article in: SOS Brutalism: A Global Survey. Catalog DAM + Wüstenrot Foundation, Zurich (Park Books) 2017

In the end of the 1990s, it was faced in marble with gilding. Fortunately, the external covering wasplaced forty to fifty centimeters from the original concrete wall, which remains largely intact. The books have been moved to another building and from time to time it has been rumored that the edifice would be demolished.