Stockholm City Library
Competition entry 2006
The new library joins an illustrious group of buildings, and like an Egyptian sphinx is proud and confident of its own values – the values of our beautiful tolerant society: of patchwork, of layering, of the many and diverse, of openness to change. It is relaxed about how it gets used, but offers a richness capable of many readings and inhabitations. A façade that at different scales tells stories, overlapping and interwoven. The geological layering of stones; the ordering, grading and sifting of knowledge; a monumental carved volume which however, close up is a rich dazzle of glazed ceramic. The meander pattern is suggestive of the labyrinth, of writing and of daydreaming. Like the texts of the library, or the people of modern Stockholm, it is the diverse and contradictory which is celebrated.
It is a special quality of Nordic Classicism that a vigorous engagement with the past can give a building of its own time, and yet produce a dignified neighbour. Strongly framing the view of the Asplund on the approach from Odenplan, allowing a tantalizing glimpse, the new building affirms the background city grid and so foregrounds the special solitaire. Knitting together the Diligentia and Folksam building both at the volumetric scale of the urban block and by the clear generous circulation running through and on to the shopping centre.