Scandinavia, you did it better: While Berlin in the development of the cultural forum around pokes like a naughty child in the spinach soup, and the North European capitals, how to do it. Not only Copenhagen and Helsinki have achieved in the past few years, a whole series of high-quality cultural buildings, also of Oslo works with Power, to become the culture capital city. With the Munch, and the national Museum and the new Deichman library in three key run currently, buildings from the stack. The Oil and gas wealth have made the appreciation of Oslo possible, but also Ambition, of taste and pragmatism.
The new main building of the Deichman’, the oldest and largest public library (and oldest institution of culture) in Norway, sees itself as a “people’s library” with a stock of over 450,000 in the media.Since the opening of the Opera in 2008, the “Dubai of the North”: New Skyline, a new airport, new metro has been a regional metropolis? Please! In just a Generation, has turned the city completely. The largest urban expansion project in its history, the Fjord City, is a twelve kilometers long Neustadt strip along the fjord. Where previously roads and tracks, the water obstructed access, and a port formed a barrier between the city and the water, created by the construction of a car tunnel under the city for thousands of new homes and jobs. The proximity to the city centre and the water make these new parts of the city attractive. A free-to-use, spatially-rich new library is completed, this urban masterpiece is now.
Reflection on the intrinsic values
Now, it is not an easy task to build right next to an architectural masterpiece such as the Oslo Opera house. A new building can’t compete creatively with the Opus of Snøhetta, but the Opera would be just the framework for a major public cultural buildings to be submissive. In the design of the new Deichman library, the most modern in Europe, found Lund Hagem Arkitekter (with Atelier Oslo), therefore, a compromise: The title of your successful Competition entry of 2009 “Diagonal” indicated that your library manages, with a protruding top of visitors along a shortcut from the city centre and main train station diagonal to the Opera.
Large cuts in the facade mark the entrances on three sides, in order to still attract visitors. The nearby Munch Museum, which will also be inaugurated on this day, tried a little tried from the same Dilemma, is close to a masterpiece, with bent upper F. A. shot to beat architecturally sparks (for example from 14. April). The Deichman library, the on 18. June was opened, on the other hand, the Opera’s an urban planning priority and focuses on inner values.
cinema, Auditorium and library in the basement
The proportions of the new building and new pedestrian connections to the library to integrate entirely relaxed in the scale of the city district Bjørvika. The facades of the Deichman library walls are a combination of transparent Windows and white glass. The translucent building looks, therefore, during the day, milky and quite undefined. Only in the twilight, the electric light gives an interesting insight into the areas of the library and the activities therein.
The Surprise on the spatial richness of the Interior of the new building is the larger and more pleasant: Three light shafts running diagonally through the books in the house and form at their intersection point, a large Central space that extends over all the floors up to the origami-like folded ceiling with three skylights. From any entrance, visitors encounter one of those solid, exciting cavities. The third and the fifth floor Mezzanine.
