Stockholm Public Library
Stockholm is stadsbibliotek 1928 inaugurated the main building, which was built to designs by the Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund Public Library of Stockholm. In a wider sense the name is also applied to the whole urban library system in Stockholm. Asplund building is located at the intersection of Sveavägen and Odengatan in Vasastaden district. Currently (2007) there are about 700,000 books in the library, as well as 177 daily newspapers and 1,200 magazines, some of which are housed in different buildings throughout the neighborhood.
Architecture
Asplund itself belongs to a Commission from 1918, discusses the concepts to build a library. This results in his plans submitted in 1922, which will be implemented from 1924. The planning goes a long study trip ahead in the United States. Of these, inspired, Asplund designed a central main room with freely accessible book shelves, amongst reading rooms and atriums. Initially a domed eye collectively, he finally builds, partly from the Barrière Saint -Martin ( Rotonde de la Villette ) by Claude Nicolas Ledoux inspired, a central rotunda, whose high cylinder the otherwise not too large construction volume is a monumental facade.
On March 31, 1928, the building was inaugurated in the presence of Prince Eugene. A at this time for lack of money or lack of West Wing is completed in 1932. Also the south to the park with the large pool of water and the low loading buildings along the Sveavägen go back to Asplund and completed in 1931. Three -situated west annex buildings are provided in its overall concept, but they are by the architect Erik Lallerstedt ( 1929-30 and 1932 ) and Paul Hedqvist ( 1952-53 ) designed.
The complex of the city library clearly shows the maturation process of the architect and the upheaval in the architecture of this period in Sweden. During the first sketches are still in a traditional Swedish Classicism of the 1920s, "Swedish grace" rooted, the project becomes more and more simplified with the progress of planning time. The cylindrical main building is exempt up to a frieze below the window row, far from any ornamentation and shows a clear functionalist direction. The shop buildings are designed in tandem in time for the Stockholm Exhibition in 1930, when the principal architect is Asplund completely prescribes the functionalism and its most important representative in Sweden. The Stockholm City Library is adjacent to the forest cemetery one of the masterpieces Asplund.
Planned expansion
Due to lack of space, an international architectural competition in 2006 will be awarded to an extension on the grounds of the annex buildings, whose fate is ( demolition or incorporation ) deliberately not prescribed. The 1170 and proposals are limited to a final selection of six from which the German architect Heike Hanada seen on 17 November 2007 as winner. Delphinium your project provides for a nine-story glass building which they distanced themselves from Asplund's main building. A combination of both is produced by a low, grassy tract, the circular to the mountain of the observatory ( Observatorielunden ) opens.
Construction was scheduled for 2010, and it was hoped to be able to dedicate the finished building in time for the 85- year anniversary on March 31, 2013. All plans for an extension of the library were stopped on October 12, 2009 by the Stockholm city government after had practiced under other ICOMOS ( UNESCO's expert body for Cultural Affairs ), Svenska academies harsh criticisms of the proposal.