In the heart of the 13th arrondissement of Paris, the François Mitterrand site of the BnF, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, is a must-see for seasoned readers and students alike looking for a place to revise and work. However, if you're planning an early morning visit on Saturday September 13, 2025, you may be in for a surprise: the BnF François Miterrand will be exceptionally closed for the morning.
The reason for the closure? A safety measure. The BnF specifies that this is due to a helicopter scraping operation as part of "work to replace the cooling towers located on the roof of tower T3". The museum is scheduled to open to the public at 2pm.
Inaugurated in 1996, the François Mitterrand site hides many secrets: between its architecture representing open books, its forest garden and its astonishing program of literary exhibitions, it's an exciting cultural venue located not far from the banks of the Seine. With no less than 54,000m2 of reading space, this Pharaonic-scale venue is a more contemporary version of the historic Quartier Latin , located near the Sorbonne between the 5th and 6th arrondissements of the capital.
BnF François Mitterrand, the huge Parisian library ideal for revision, but not only
In the 13th arrondissement, it's impossible to miss these 4 immense buildings overlooking the banks of the Seine: designed to resemble an open book, the four towers of the François Mitterrand library offer a place to read, work in silence, do research and consult hundreds of thousands of documents. [Read more]
Location
BnF - Site François Mitterrand
Quai François Mauriac
75013 Paris 13
Official website
www.bnf.fr
