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  3. The French are the masters of "grands projets". (46)They have the cruelnes, national pride and willingness to spend that are nee

The French are the masters of "grands projets". (46)They have the cruelnes, national pride and willingness to spend that are nee

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问题     The French are the masters of "grands projets". (46)They have the cruelnes, national pride and willingness to spend that are needed for great public works. (47)The British, on the other hand are usually dismissed as too mean, troubled by regulations and lacking in vision, to build anything worthwhile. But occasionally the bulldog triumphs.
    Take, for example, that grandest, of grands projets, the national library. The Bibliotheque Nationale de France. fast-tracked by President Mitterrand, was planned and built in less than a decade. With its four 80-metre-high glass towers, designed to resemble open books, the library was hailed as a wonder of design and construction when it opened in 1998. (48)Its 11 million books, protected by automatic climate control, were planned to be instantly accessible, with the help of computerised automatic loading trains running on miles of trains. All this, for FFr 8 billion (pounds 861 million), was hailed as evidence that the glory of France was alive and well.
    The British Library, which cost a third less, became a symbol of national incompetence. First conceived in 1962, it ran into trouble from the start. (49)After three decades of bitter controversy, planning delays and money problems, the new red-brick library, designed by Colin St John Wilson finally opened for business in 1997. The reviews, given its troubled history, were predictably mixed. The Prince of Wales, who had unveiled the foundation stone, compared it to "an academy for secret police".
    Matters look different today. The British Library is widely acknowledged as one of London’s best modern buildings, a triumph of design over adversity. Those who work there sing its praises. The Bibliotheque Nationale, by contrast, has become notorious for its poor design and even worse construction. Its high technology search system has proved a nightmare. Its glass construction bakes books in summer. Its freezing winter temperatures have provoked its 3,000 staff to strike. (50)Conditions became so intolerable that soon after it opened several hundred frustrated students stormed a reading room trampling library staff under foot. Dismissed by three famous French professors as a "sinister fame", la grande bibliotheque proves that victory does not always go to the swiftest.

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答案经过三十多年的激烈争论、计划推迟和资金问题，由科林.圣约翰.威尔逊设计的这座红砖砌成的图书馆终于在1997年开放了。
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