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A Library for Helsinki
2012 | critic: José Oubrerie | Helsinki, Finland
Based on the 2012 international competition for a new Helsinki Library, this project provides a playful reaction to it’s strong social and political surroundings. The building borrows much its geometry and components form its neighbors and then reacts - perhaps most significantly in its parliament-facing facade. Here, the library responds inversely to this raised, monumental, classical building by pressing into the land, canting the columns, blowing up the ‘pediment’ to an almost absurd extent, and deliberately misusing every classical part from the steps to the windows.
This, combined with the almost animate, figural qualities of the exterior provides a fairly unique approach, transporting the visitor from the streets of Helsinki to a strange new world. The two elaborate means of entry bring one from the lowered ground plane up into the heart of the project. These moves largely set the stage upon which the rest of the spaces can now dramatically unfold.
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