Gothenburg University Library

We want to create a building that adapts to the existing context and at the same time adds a contemporary openness to the area. Even though the library belongs to the university, access to knowledge belongs to us all. The University Library is the area’s new lighthouse that marks the university at Renströmsparken and Korsvägen as a creative and democratic meeting place for the humanities, culture, art and people among themselves. We want to use the plot’s difference in level to create an open terraced landscape, which connects the sides of the house and offers a friendly and inviting room in the park. Here, everyone should find their own place to immerse themselves.

The landscape naturally offers varied study zones, with different openness, delimitation, room height and acoustics. Here, visitors can together or individually find the room and the place that creates the necessary peace for immersion but where they are at the same time part of the community. Gothenburg’s cultural buildings all signal their functional identity and make themselves understood in the urban space. Like the Concert Hall’s concert hall, the Stadsteatern’s stage and the Artist’s lantern, the new university library marks its clear function in the high-bay book tower, which will be easy to orientate oneself after. The entrances should be easy to find, it should be easy for employees to have an overview and it should be easy to orientate oneself even as a first-time visitor.