Free to enter, open six days a week and four minutes on foot from ZOE Hotel. Here is how to visit Prishtina's most debated building, and what is really true about its domes.
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The National Library of Kosovo is the building most visitors photograph first in Prishtina, and the one they argue about longest. It is also free to walk into. ZOE Hotel is a 4-minute walk away, so here is what to know before you go.
Opening hours and entry
The library is open Monday to Friday from 8:00 to 20:00 and on Saturday from 8:00 to 14:00. It is closed on Sundays, and hours can change around national holidays, so check the library's opening hours page if your visit falls on one.
Visitors are welcome inside and the visit is free. You only need to register, at 12 euros a year, if you want to use the reading rooms and the collection. The library does not publish rules on photography, and it is a working library full of students, so keep your voice down in the reading areas and ask at the information centre on the first floor if you are unsure.
The building
The library was designed by the Croatian architect Andrija Mutnjaković in the early 1970s. Construction began in 1974, staff moved in on 26 May 1982, and the building was formally inaugurated on 25 November 1982, the anniversary of the library's founding.
The library describes it as a composition of cubes wrapped in a skeletal steel membrane, with domes that bring daylight down into the rooms below. Architectural historians have read its forms as a blend of Byzantine and Islamic traditions.
Opinion is divided. In 2009 the travel site VirtualTourist put it ninth on a list of the world's ugliest buildings. Kosovo has since taken the opposite view: on 26 June 2023 the building was added to the country's list of cultural heritage under permanent protection.
How many domes? Not 99
Almost every guide to Prishtina repeats that the library has 99 domes. The library itself disagrees. By its own count there are 72, and its official history calls the 99 figure a myth. Other published counts range from 73 to 99 depending on what is counted as a dome, so treat any confident number with suspicion.
A short history
The institution is much older than the building. It was founded in Prizren on 25 November 1944, moved to Prishtina in 1946, and went through several names before becoming the National Library of Kosovo in 2014. Its full name honours Pjetër Bogdani, the 17th-century writer whose Cuneus Prophetarum is one of the founding works of Albanian literature.
Its recent history mirrors the country's. In September 1990 the Serbian Assembly placed the library under "temporary coercive measures": 99 librarians and technical staff were dismissed, 93 of them Albanian, and Albanian readers were expelled, according to a 2000 report by UNESCO, the Council of Europe and IFLA. The exterior came through the war of 1998 and 1999 relatively unharmed, though the interiors were damaged. Today the library holds around 2.5 million items, including about 1,300 volumes of old manuscripts.
What is around it
The library stands at the centre of the University of Prishtina campus. Beside it is the unfinished Serbian Orthodox Church of Christ the Saviour, whose construction began in the 1990s and stopped in 1999. Its ownership has been contested in Kosovo's courts for years, so it is a building to look at from the outside.
A short walk away is the Cathedral of Saint Mother Teresa, whose bell tower you can ride up by lift. From there it is easy to continue to Mother Teresa Boulevard and on to the Newborn Monument. Our guides to things to do in Prishtina and how many days to spend in the city show how the library fits into a first day.
Staying nearby
ZOE Hotel is on Agim Ramadani, a 4-minute walk (about 350 metres) from the library, 10 minutes from Mother Teresa Boulevard and 14 from the Newborn Monument. Our location page shows every route, or you can browse the rooms. Rooms are paid on arrival, with free cancellation up to 24 hours before check-in.
Four minutes from the library
Stay on Agim Ramadani, a short walk from the National Library and the university quarter. Pay on arrival, with free cancellation up to 24 hours before check-in.