Helsinki Library

Rusticated volumes create a welcoming and dynamic public node in a civic context

The site of the new Helsinki Central Public Library demands a dynamic structure that visually connects and physically consolidates the network of parks, civic buildings, and architectural masterpieces already populating the site. The new building intensifies the visibility and status of existing buildings, which include the Kiasma Museum and The Finnish Parliament Building to the southwest, the Music Hall to the west, Aalto’s Finlandia Hall to the northwest, as well the old train station to the south, all of which are significant iconic institutional buildings not only to the site itself, but also to the collective memory of Helsinki.

With its longitudinal bar of three crystalline hanging volumes projecting outward and above the established footprint of the site, the new building silently consolidates the master plan of its surrounding context by framing three historical focal points at the same time creating a covered promenade to access the building. While the projectile mass allows for direct visibility from the interior towards those buildings, it also provides the new library with the essential emblematic presence that a civic building of its cultural relevance must maintain.

To accentuate the wisdom of regional authenticity which once made Helsinki and Finland one of the most advanced design centers of the world, overhangs articulate a dynamic and rusticated facade that generates a sense of “optical tactility” and invites inspection at close range. Its rich materiality and subtle coloration of the facade recalls the rural landscape and uneven geography of Finland and the northern countries, with some of the surfaces to become an oblique green wall with ivy and moss. The rustic surface accentuates the natural character of the building by revealing ever-changing perspectives, features, and seasonal variations, leading to a counterintuitive consistency and precision where organic matter becomes a repeatable tectonic unit.