The podium area forms a single esplanade with wide stairs giving access from the Seine embankment. To reach the library entrances, readers cross the wood-floored esplanade, which serves both as a public square and a terrace. The library itself is first observed through the tree-tops emerging from a garden covering some two acres in the central hollow of the podium area. The reading rooms occupy two levels around the garden, with workshops and stockrooms encircling them on the outer side. The stockrooms provide 395 linear kilometres of shelving altogether and are located partly within the podium block, next to the reading rooms, and partly in the upper storeys of the tower blocks.
Service areas encircle both stockrooms and reading rooms at each level.
The two library entrances are reached by two symmetrical, gently sloping walkways along the shorter sides of the garden on the east and west sides of the building. Besides the reading rooms, an auditorium, a lecture hall, six lecture rooms seating fifty people each and two exhibition areas will provide year-round facilities for cultural events. Finally, the library provides various ancillary services including restaurants, cafeterias, a gift and book shop. Walkways along the garden D. Perrault arch. The BnF and the Bercy bridge D. Perrault arch.