Helsinki Central Library - Liber Hall

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Helsinki Central Library - Liber Hall

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Type

Cultural › Cultural Center
Educational › Library

L I B
E R   H A L L

A
place for everyone: open and accessible, usable and public. A public square
animated by exhibitions, events and music. A space surrounded by some of the
most important buildings of the city. It’s the cultural centre, heart and mind
of the community.
A
sheltered space, visible and easily recognizable; a place where the human
knowledge makes its way to a universe of learning through the library spaces.
Inside and outside, public and private, interior and exterior. In this
continuous switching from one state to the other, the bond with this building
takes place: it introduces the mind to the deep explorations of our inner-self
passing through the open gates of knowledge and sharing.
This leads us to propose
a big, closed building: the entrance to
the floor where the park and the street are, a sort of cave where all those
things expressing human nature qualities are kept and that hides in itself
spaces where we can fly freely, without any chains, where we can test ourselves through the different learning
channels.
The entrance is
little more than a hole, a crack, easily detected on a big solid wall that is
apparently impenetrable. Inside, the room is amplified in a vertical projection illuminated by the depth of the
sky that creates the impression of a birch forest in semi-darkness: when
looking up you can see the sunrays make their way through the foliage. The
cavern is full of spaces where you can
start learning: walking down the road that crosses it, you can glimpse the various
parts of the city that have been left behind. The light itself makes the
visitor want to find out what’s hiding overhead, between the branches of this
warm and hospitable forest where getting lost is a joy. While going up, a first
gash can be found: an open space where the inside and the outside merge
together. People, things, sounds, the square are in and out. As you keep going
upwards, you never lose contact with the city, the everyday life, the emotions
and relationships that bind us to it; you’ll find the places where knowledge opens all
doors to human experience and the horizon becomes accessible. And here, from
these huge stilts where men find shelter from the darkness of ignorance, you
can fly with no fear of burning your wings.

We’re
proposing a building where stratigraphy tells the plot of common feelings, the need of investigating, experimenting and
understanding: all this is gathered and preserved in the libraries all over the
world which people of all ages have given their contribution to, showing their
own direct bond to the first trace given to build our memory.

The horizontal
stratification:
First layer.
Ground Floor.
It’s a solid
layer, a big, grey, concrete base that is closed, almost impenetrable. On the
long wall facing the Parliament, close to the south-west corner, is the main entrance. It looks like the
entrance to the cavern: short, flat, not very illuminated. When you step
inside, you instantly see the long path that crosses all the building and divides
it into two external passages, a northern one and a southern one. All the main
lobby functions are concentrated on this axle: a path in which the light falls
from the great vertical void that accompanies it and in which, at times, a sky
view opens up. The light and uprightness of the space, especially emphasized by
the big structural pillars that contain emergency stairs and root canal
treatments of the systems, make the visitor want to go up a path that is
between the Töölönlahdenkatu street outside and the path inside. This creates
the impression of being in a border land.
Second layer. First floor.
From the evident
formal compactness of the layer below we
move to a fluid, impalpable, very bright depth. The big glass surfaces
delimiting the few buildings that face on the square make the line between
inside and outside rarefied. Our gaze wanders on the city and green areas around
the building and detaches itself from the traffic and noise coming from the
surrounding streets. It’s a big space delimited and protected by the huge stilt
above: this is a remarkable feature that emphasizes the nature of the space as
privileged observatory, similar to a terrace. People, sounds, colours and
things meet here, at daytime and night time.
Third layer.
Second and third floor.
To get to this
layer we keep going up, gradually detaching ourselves from our bond to everyday
life but without ever losing visual contact. This part, that is “suspended between
the foliage” of knowledge and is similar to a modern stilt, lets you have
access to the tools that make us grow and evolve.

The material
The gap between
the base and the volume of the stilts, seen as a way to create the big void on
the central public square, is the inspirational reason that we followed all
along our project path. Considering the ideas of solidity and roughness that
the base is meant to transmit, we have chosen to use the armed concrete because
it’s a material able to also carry out the structural function and that doesn’t
require us to add further finish layers. It’s a bare building that shows itself
and its force without mediators and represents the different emotional states
that we go through as we walk inside it.
The glass is the
element that makes the building complete: it delimits the transparencies and
the need of open spaces that are distinctive in some internal areas and important
for their functions. In the top part where book collections and all functions
connected to them are kept, is a mobile system of light shielding made up of
birch wood panels: it contributes to formally complete the building respecting the
feelings that we had while exploring it.

Product Spec Sheet

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Collaborating Firms

Maroni&Partners

Plumbing Consultant

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Team

Giancarlo Ghirardelli

Principal Architect

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Helsinki Central Library - Liber Hall

Helsinki Central Library - Liber Hall

Product Spec Sheet

Collaborating Firms

Team