At the dawn of the Common Era, the Egyptian city of Alexandria boasted the greatest library of the ancient world. It would last only until 30 BC, when Cleopatra had her fatal encounter with the asp and the Romans brought the 3000-year reign of the Pharaohs to an end. Shortly afterwards, the library went up in flames, leaving classical scholars to perpetually mourn its loss.

Today’s Alexandria, home to 6 million people and an illustrious past, is a shabby beehive of a city, but since 2002 it has had a new library. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is a steel and granite edifice designed by Norwegian architects that occupies the site of its famous ancestor. Those ancient books are gone forever, but there’s room for 8 million recent publications.