Malmo City Library, Sweden



Architect
Henning Larsen
Date Built
1997 - 1999
Location
Kung Oscars Väg
Description
Malmo’s city library is made up of three elements.  Working from left to right above, you have the original building, known as the old “Castle”, designed by John Smedberg and built in 1901.  In the centre the circular building, known as the “Cylinder”, acts as the library entrance and also contains a café.  On the right is the library extension called the “Calendar of Light”, a large open space with a glass wall providing a view of the city park across the street.  The Cylinder and the Calendar of Light were designed by the architect Henning Larsen.  These three elements are linked by glass corridors.

Henning Larsen says of the building that, “Daylight plays an essential role in all building spaces and is experienced as a stimulating and varying element during all hours of the day. The entrance space is lit up from above along the walls while the central space fills the entire room with light flowing down and filtered through the storeys. Here, the sky constitutes the view. The large library space functions as a kind of ‘calendar of light’ where the light is coloured by the leaves of the large trees in the park.”



The library’s website says that it, “ ... has almost 1 million visitors each year and is as well-known for its beautiful architecture as for how it seeks out new ways to offer knowledge and entertainment in a multicultural Malmö. The library has been rewarded with several prizes such as Library of the Year in Sweden, the Swedish National Encyclopedia’s Knowledge Award and Malmö City’s Integration Prize, among other things for using the services of multilingual upper secondary school students to help visitors who cannot speak Swedish.”