Thank you so much. Fantastic to see so many people on Monday evening. It can't possibly be because you want to hear about libraries. It must be because it's so cold outside, isn't it?
I'm freezing here, even though I come from a country where it's summer right now, and it's just a little bit warmer than here. I don't know what it is. It must be the wind or something like it. But well, it's a pleasure.
first of all working with this library here, and also a pleasure being able to show you all the libraries that we've been doing. I only have 250 slides to go through the next 50 minutes, so it's going to be very, very quick. Well, first of all, I want to, before going into this issue here, talk a little about ourselves very briefly, and then by the end of the presentation I will show you a couple of projects.
which is not libraries, but something very sort of similar to the libraries, because I think you will be fed up with all these libraries by the end of the presentation. Our name is Smit Hammerlassen, but we're also known as SHL outside Denmark. We are based in Copenhagen, in Denmark, and we work both in Aarhus and in Copenhagen, in Denmark, but we have a strong presence.
in Shanghai and China as well. And we're about 150 architects, whereas 30 of them are working in China. Our studio was founded in Denmark, so we follow a very Scandinavian way of thinking about our cities and our projects.
This is the latest Danish architecture policy launched in February in 2014 by the Danish Minister of Culture. And the key thing... here is about putting people first really.
So this is how we work and we look at architecture as being democratic. We call it democratic architecture. Architecture that focuses around the needs and experiences of the people that use the buildings we design. We're constantly thinking about how we can open up ways to engage people with our projects and we try hard to get down to the essence really of what each... unique project project is about and that's why we love libraries so much because it has to do with people and children they love reading books but they are also in a generation of technology and as we are continually hearing how we deal with this is key to the future of the libraries I'm not going to go very much into all these technical aspects of the future libraries, but it's more the frames of them.
We're developing the way we think about libraries towards what we refer to as collection to connection. How do we design libraries that can be both collection-oriented and socially-oriented? We've designed and completed over 15 large-scale libraries around the world and are currently working on a number of others.
And although the majority of our library's projects are centered around Scandinavia, we have worked and are working in places like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and China. So perhaps one place to start is to look at some of the first libraries in history. This is the Royal Library of Alexandria in Egypt, built in the 3rd century before Christ, and it acted as the hub for scholars. of people were illiterate. So this was a place for the elite, first of all.
This is the Royal Library in Copenhagen, Denmark, a project we designed more than 2,000 years later. Some 23 years ago, and it opened 17 years ago. And this also technically is a research scholarly library, and on top it is the National Library of Denmark.
And this project aims to show... the immediate difference between closed elitist library buildings towards a more open and inclusive building type. The building holds the very rare books in Denmark, but most importantly, it is completely open to the public and lots of public events take place here every day, lectures, music. etc. It's a library for everyone, not just scholars, and we created a ground floor that included public plazas, a shop, a cafe, a high-end restaurant, exhibition spaces, and a concert hall.
And the public space has been become a stage for the life of the city, backed by the library as a key marker for the citizens, a strong example of how a library can create a feeling of cultural center for a city. As introvert, it may look like look in its exterior as extrovert it is in its interior. It's opening up to the public, making this grand gesture with the softness of the curved concrete. It's opening up the library to the water as well, creating a space that was all about inviting people in to participate in the various programs run by the library.
But symbolically, it's also showing opening up to to the sky, to the cosmos, and to the universal knowledge with this V shape. Here's the music festival taking place with live DJ and projections, for example, held in the main library space. And the library now has its own residence classical group known as the Diamond Ensemble. So the library is engaging truly with the culture of the city and its people.
And they frequently perform. form here. Oh, sorry.
In a 600-seat musical performance hall. So this shows how perfect example of a library is acting as a civic and social space. Oh, sorry. This is another library we have completed in Aberdeen, Scotland, in UK.
And this is an academic library for the University of Aberdeen. But we wanted to create something that engaged engaged with the public and the wider city. By having a plinth containing all the rare books, because up in Aberdeen they've got one of the largest collections of rare books in UK. Then we connected the exterior academic square to the ground floor. And we added many floors connected to each other by a spectacular atria.
And finally, we added the skin. So we created a completely public floor open to anyone with a public cafe, exhibition space and public lecture hall, and a spatial idea that drew and encouraged people to want to enter and dwell deeper into the library. And looking down, you can see this combination of the idea of collection to connection, the space being specifically designed to encourage chance encounters and meetings. Fragrancy of books.
saturated with the frequency of books. The space took even Queen Elizabeth to the top floor, where I had the honor of showing her around in the building. She didn't bring her parachute at that time, though. This is the embodiment of the idea of the library as a meeting space, or as we refer to as the third space, creating that space somewhere between your work life and your home life. And there are references in Chinese culture that make reference to the importance of the meeting space and public space.
This is part of a painting by the Chinese painter Zhang Xiujun, entitled A Long River During Kuigming Festival. And this painting is known for depicting different people from different backgrounds interacting with one another. Not only in China, of course, but across the world, this interaction...
or meeting is fundamental to the core of our society. And we look at this as the core of the modern library today. I also wanted to show this. This is one of the world's smallest libraries. It is in a neighborhood in New York and was part of an initiative known as Little Free Libraries.
And it's based on the premise of take a book, return a book. And one of the many cool things about this library, that it really encourages people to meet new people and activates parts of us our city no matter how small and this idea of a library as a meeting point or meeting space or more importantly a community space is always at the forefront of our thinking in new libraries the most important function of the modern library today and for the future is to help people understand interpret and relate to the world around them. It is even important to allow the users themselves to form such spaces. This idea is fundamental to the idea of inclusiveness and creating a sense of ownership of the space for the visitors. Likewise, users of the modern library are varied and different, from children to teenagers, researchers to the elderly.
So it's important to allow the flexibility to create and recreate zones and areas for different use. Besides maybe museums, libraries are some of the very few public spaces left that are non-commercial. This makes a public library as important as a church, a public park or a city hall because it is the people's building and everyone can go there.
Another topic we frequently discuss is the idea of exploration. And we believe this is another fundamental concept in the modern library. We often refer to it as serendipity. People today come to libraries for many different reasons. And in order to develop and encourage knowledge sharing and innovation, a library needs to encourage exploration and discovery.
And we took this idea... literally in a small local library we completed in Denmark with artist Bosse and Fjord. This is a plan of the library, and you can see the shelving for books and seating and desks. And this crazy red line that also represents bookshelves and desks and seats.
This red line of display shelving containing new collections and media twisted through the space, encouraging users to follow it. and discover, turning from shelving to desk spaces, floating through the space, breaking the associated continuity of the library as a rigid and ordered archive system, encouraging exploration and discovery. Another aspect we believe is key to the modern library is involvement and empowerment.
This is a picture from our doc one library in Aarhus in Denmark. Showing this idea of programming new types of activities within the library. Or here, some new technology, interactive gaming and some more old-school gaming. Again, here's a space dedicated to the Aboriginal community in our Halifax library in Canada, the National Circle.
Or here, a yoga class in a flexible space we created facing the city. In fact, some people often refer to this quote by Benjamin Franklin, Tell me, and I forget, teach me, and I may remember, involve me, and I learn. It's a great quote, I think, but for you historians out there, you will probably be aware that it's widely considered that Benjamin Franklin actually never said that at all.
It was originally said by this guy, the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu. And although the quote is slightly different, the moral is the same. You can only really understand something by trying it yourself. So if we take these ideas, experience, innovation, involvement and empowerment for what we often call the four spaces of the public library of the future. For a number of years, we have followed the work of professors at the Royal School of Library.
and Information Science in Copenhagen, we refer to this four-space model for the new library of the future. Their belief was that a modern library must support these four goals experience, empowerment, involvement and innovation. And these goals are supported by four different space types learning space, meeting spaces, Performative spaces and inspirational spaces.
I want to quickly show you four libraries that we have designed in a little more detail in Canada, China, Denmark and New Zealand and try to explain some of these ideas. I'm sorry, but the New Zealand one didn't come on the map. It was too small. Let's start in Canada. In the port city...
of Halifax and Nova Scotia. It's the red dot in Nova Scotia. The other red dot has nothing to do with libraries, but that's where time... Titanic sank. This is the library, a complete building built on the side of a parking lot in downtown Halifax, conceived as a composition of stacked and twisted glass volumes, placed at a critical junction in the city.
The project was to replace this building, the old library was built in the 1950s, as a memorial to those who died in the world wars. It was a closed stone building, very traditional and introvert. And the new library was intended to be the opposite of this, open and glass and welcoming.
Here you can see this yin and yang difference between the context, brick versus glass, but connected through massing and color. This library was the result of intensive public consultation, six large meetings of 300 plus people over six months, and around 1,000 people online Twitter at every event. Our entire design process were exposed. We started with no proposal and ended with a scheme in six months'time, based all on the public's views and comments. The public were welcomed into the process, and we took the essence of their choices and developed it into our design.
And this was the final proposal designed alongside the public. This was... what we proposed to the city planning bureau, and the project complete. So it was very, very close to what we agreed with the public.
And that has reflected back as very positive as well. Activity becomes visible deep inside the building, naturally more so at night. Halifax has a long, dark winter months, so its perception at night was important. From street level, you can see deep...
into the library. The main cantilever becomes a marker, the center of the downtown. And there we placed the so-called Halifax Living Room on the top.
Inside the library was, of course, incredibly important and was a major part of the public consultation process. Here are a picture from one of the dedicated kids'consultation sessions we held. and all the kids were Harry Potter mad, and basically asked us to make the library like Hogwarts.
So we decided to watch the movie again for some inspiration. We got inspired, of course. So a series of stairs and bridges connected the spaces in various directions.
Atrium becomes a focus for movement and activity. As well as stairs, we created a series of bridges across the atrium. and the stairs open up to the main entrance. It also enhances the idea of exploration or serendipity, as I said.
And this is something we think is very important in modern libraries. And naturally, this came from what we thought a library should be about from children's view. But naturally, adults love to explore too.
This is the embodiment of our idea, a collection to... connection. The ground floor is an extension of the plaza in front, connecting outside to inside. And this connection continues all the way back to the flexible performance space at the back of the building.
The old library had 250,000 visits per year. The aim was to double this to 500, now on track for 2 million. For this project we go to Ningbo in China.
This is the existing center of Ningbo you see here. And as the city expands, they are actioning ambitious plans for a new town. The city had quite ambitious plans to dramatically increase the number of visitors to the new library. Here's showing that their existing library already had more visitors than the Royal Library we designed in Copenhagen.
So the new library needed to be designed for 8,000 visitors per day. So taking this idea that libraries are increasingly becoming a community or city meeting place. And one of the last three spaces where people can come together without being sold something or being asked to move on, we needed to create a meeting space for 8,000 people. So we focused one super large single space to act as this large meeting place at ground level. And we placed all the most important library functions on this.
one floor and keep the plan very open and connected to the outside and this create a space something like this a place for discovery really something we continue to develop and first tried in our library we designed in Sweden in Helmstad if you consider this traditional book stack like this only containing books we believe this will completely change in the future if we follow this idea of collection to connection. So in Ningbo Library, we proposed a much larger book stack that not only contained books, but also people. And these giant book stacks would lead people up from the open marketplace to the floors above.
So people would interact in the larger marketplace and almost follow the sunlight up through the giant book stack to explore the library. And the... And the book stack connects with the rest of the library above, connecting three different volumes containing various collections, offices, classrooms, and media labs. Looking at how the library sits in the site, like all our previous libraries, the ground floor remains open and connected to the outside. So very much like this from this image in Sweden.
This is the main entrance of the Ningbo Library with the open ground floor. This project is under construction and due to complete next year. So now I want to take you to the city of Aarhus, where I come from, in the northeast coast of Denmark.
It's also where SHLs were originally founded. Like in Copenhagen, like in Halifax, and like in Ningbo, Aarhus was an industrial port city and is going through a major redevelopment. of the harbour areas nowadays.
And in 2008, we won the competition on this site that sits squeezed in between the city and the harbour. The project was for the city's new central library, citizen service centre, office space, and a major transport hub. So in a way, a new hybrid mixed-use building. And rather than place these functions next to each other, we proposed to stack these functions. on top of one another in an attempt to create a compressed sense of connection and synergy between these functions.
The concept was to create an open media space for the citizens sandwiched between the transport hub below and the office space above. And this central space almost like a covered urban plaza is intended to act as a free zone where users can move move freely between the library functions. This is the original dock site. And you can see the river as well coming from there. This image is an old image, but now the river has opened up.
Our proposal reconfigures and creates a completely new dock front, allowing the people of the city almost 360 degree access to the water. So this was our proposal in rendering. and here's it completed.
The waterfront is still under construction, though, and completed by an open public gathering, and completed it would be an open public gathering place. Here's an example of how the spaces are used. Here, just before a music concert, the library becomes part of the city fabric. The outdoor spaces become an extension of the library space and can act as backyards. backdrop for various light installations as well.
And we created a series of playful sculptures as well for the children. Here's a volcano from Iceland located on the north west facing the direct direction of Iceland. As you move around the library to the south you can visit the African monkey and play hide and seek in the forest.
On the north east is a huge Russian bear where you can slide down the tree trunk. And in the West you can catch a ride on a massive American eagle. And of course in the East a Chinese dragon promises adventure and discovery in China. So for children it encourages this association with a wider world around us in relation to the particular place in the world.
These sculptures were created by Danish designers Monstrum. And inside The integration of art continues. Danish visual artist Kirstine Røbstoff conceived the gong as you've already heard about. So this is the tubular bell in the middle of that space. And you can stick your head up into it and hope not there will be a child born at that time.
A single large garden is placed within the library, yes. And yeah, this is the whole story about that. We all really heard.
Inside the space is open and flexible, always connecting to the city, allowing for contemplation and understanding your place in the world, but also for creativity and performance. Here shows dance performance taking place in an area we call the media ramp. And this space is constantly changing with performance lectures and inspirational programs.
Or here for quiet study. Functions that used to be in the city hall has found its place here as well. Here you can get passports and driver's license and the like.
And while people are waiting for the driver's license, that's passports, they can use the facilities as well. So, that was about doc one from Christchurch, the fourth of the libraries that I'm going to present. You of course know about it.
we are working on that project and it will go into construction soon and this is an image from before the devastating earthquake that you all heard about about and this is the after image and I don't know how many of you who have been there but it's amazing to experience a city where there's still buildings there but this there's not a city anymore I mean it's it's just spaces between buildings there's no streets and no plazas anymore so it's a it's a very strange place and of course the central space of the city is the the cathedral square where the cathedral itself is also going to be demolished or rebuilt. So our project here is going to be the first driver to redevelop the centre core of the of Christ Church as a public building with high quality, high architectural quality. And as the building will have the cathedral on one side and Christ Church cultural institutions, the theatres and cinemas on the other.
other we wanted to connect the building on ground level that was very important in the early design processes we were asked to work very closely with the memories on the design So the notion of the petaka, the top component, the community arena below, was the output from the interesting and inspiring workshops that we had with these people. And the space inside connects vertically. Mother Earth and Father Sky need to be connected inside the building.
And we had to be aware of all their children as well. The skies, the rain, the light and the trees. the forest and all that.
And it was, for me, an eye opener. And I think we as architects need to be aware of these much more sensible ways of looking at our spaces around us. So the final design has come out with this here. There's a veil around the petaka representing the dominant color of the forest. of nature in New Zealand, especially in the autumn, I think.
And you will see the various angle components each pointing in different directions of important features in nature. It's Mount Cook and et cetera like this. And on this image you will see underneath the petaka there's the very dominant community arena which is so important for the Maoris as well.
well. So meeting people has in this project taken even a more sort of sensitive level, which I find very interesting. So it's a formal space, it's not an informal space, because meeting people needs respect as well from each other, and the space needs to facilitate this respect. four libraries showing this idea of creating space for connection, all in separate corners of the world. And with this, I will go into, not libraries, but a project up north, I guess, on the very different opposite part of the globe, up in Greenland, which has been the first project of public character that we have been designing and I've been involved in, which is...
is still for me one of the most sort of interesting experiences that I've gone through with a project. It's the Cataract Cultural Centre in Greenland, and I guess it must be, yeah, sorry, it's not easy to, you know, read and then talk freely, but now I'm reading. Great.
Greenland only with a population of 50,000 people, but it belongs to Denmark. And you won't believe that this huge, vast country only has 50,000 people. And the capital of Nuuk, where only 14,000 people live, it's an arctic, in the arctic climate.
And during the winter period, the northern light is present almost every night. And just in the waters... around it, the colossal icebergs are drifting and passing by the city.
And we came up with this design for the first building of its kind, a cultural center, which should not only serve the local people, but as well, it gathers all Inuits once a year from all over the northern hemisphere. From Alaska to Siberia, they speak the same language, really, and they gather in this building. Our design picked up on the essence of the Inuit. unique nature of Greenland, moving northern light reflecting the dynamic nature of the fjords.
Designing a building which has this sort of, which can stand the harsh climate as well was a challenge. And designing a building, the only triangular building, which at this very point connects the harbour with the government buildings which didn't exist before. Insight... There's the inherent feeling. of the Nordic lightness which the inner is so closely connected to via nature.
Art and their myths are subtly exposed and molded into the concrete work. And the building has proven to be really the place for people to gather. So every weekend, thousands, thousands really, of people come to this building to meet and to experience the culture. children, keeping their traditions alive, music, but as well functioning as the more formal venue for political discussions.
Princess Mary, which I'm sure you're familiar with, coming from Tasmania, married to the Crown Prince of Denmark, has been in this building, and this image is just outside this building. She's been there many, many times. So, from Greenland, we're jumping back to Aarhus, where I come from, and I'm just going to finally speak about the art museum, because I find art museum and libraries... very similar.
It's a gathering place and art has a very important role in the modern times, really to remind us of something which is which we have lost our connection to cosmos, to the spirit and to, you know, nourish our soul, so to speak. Well, libraries has art as well as literature. literature. So you can say that there's a relationship from libraries to museums as well.
But in our city, in 2017 we had been nominated the city of culture in Europe and this is partly because of this museum. That's why it's so important. So right in the centre of Aarhus we have designed two of the major buildings.
I've shown one of them at the harbour front, but one of the other ones is Aarhus. It sits in a cluster of cultural venues in the middle of the city with green parks surrounding it. and the famous city hall and the former library. The museum wanted the building to connect these two major places in the city via a museum street. At one end, the beautiful city hall with a distinct bell tower and designed by Arne Jacobsen, the world-renowned Danish architect and partly known for the abt chair.
You know that chair, I'm sure. The museum wants to... create a direct contextual relationship to place, almost historically, a brick city with consistent brick architecture all over. And here was our approach, a building which is just in red brick like all the other ones, but cut up in a very different way, and have delicate brick works. And it fits well into the context of Aarhus.
But you will see this image here without anything on top. And we slice this block to expose a contrasting white interior, enticing people to view inside, and opening up the ground floor to the city. At night, the slice through the center invites citizens to use the art gallery as a shortcut through the city. Democratic idea that art is free, like here from London.
Tate Modern, and as well as a walkthrough to make people aware of the art. And via an organic-shaped form, the street connects to the rest of the city's urban realm. Spaces become more dramatic and exciting, and it's curvature between concave and convex. And it's inspired, of course, by Guggenheim in New York. The grand staircase becomes a major sculpture.
element in the space and brings you slowly up and down in the vertical stacked museum, while being able to connect visually to the city hall at the other end. The Boy by Ron Mueck is a part of that common foyer and contributes to the space in a sense provocative way, as well encouraging people to engage with other people. art without actually entering the gallery.
...proper. Amelie Earhart, first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, her airplane has been on display in that space as well. And two young artists did this installation, light installation, for hours years ago. And this installation was so real that the fire brigades were really called down and thousands of people called in and said ours is on fire.
So the artist's mission was really well done. So a few years after the completion, the Musing wanted to push forward with a permanent art installation on the rooftop that had already been decided from the very beginning when we won the project in an architectural competition. Olof Oliasson, the Danish-Icelandic artist, was appointed by an invited competition.
And he's very known for his amazing installation, The Sun at Tate Modern. His idea for ours was to build a built an installation where people could be an active part of the art. Hovering on top of the building, here's an image, a rendering from his proposal.
And he called the art piece, the installation, My Panorama with Rainbow. Here's a rendering as well from his proposal. We were, as architects, responsible for the details and construction of the work, and lots of testing were made initially. to be sure the rainbow effects worked properly. Curved, laminated, hardened, toughened, coloured glass panels manufactured in Germany were used.
And were in a very complicated static structure, holding up the roof itself only by the glass, without any columns. Here you can see the finished rainbow hovering above, and you can hardly sense the difference. that it has columns, which illuminates the skyline of Aarhus, a piece you return to time after time, really.
And everyone loves to experience the city from above via this experience of color. Here you can see the structure without any railings and columns. UK's health and safety systems would never have approved this.
But we are in Denmark. And it takes you through all the colors of the rainbows. So the sensation that you get viewing your city is different, different with the light and different with the view.
So it has become... venue for thousands and thousands of people that comes from all over the world to see this huge piece. And it cannot be said more than it has given so much back to the city, just this little piece on top of the museum, then I think it has been the reason for the award of the European Cote d'Or city. This is one of the main reasons.
So the investment initially has been really good. So upon the success of the rainbow, seven years later the museum wants to go for what they call the next level because the museum cannot exist if they don't invent themselves again, reinvent themselves, and come up with something completely new. And for this installation, they have appointed world-renowned light artist James Turrell, most known for his so-called skyspaces installations like Olafur Liessens, which investigates the phenomena of nature.
James Turrell's works is predominantly work with color, and specifically on the notion complementary color. James Turrell is an interesting composed personality. His background as a Quaker brings him in close connection to the spiritual world.
Here, they congregate in a circle, mostly in complete silence for an hour. But he's also highly technical and fascinated by airplanes and navigation in airspace gives him the physical relationship to cosmos. This image is one of his many own vintage airplanes, a Lockheed 10, same as how it flew around the world. He's most known for his installation, the Rodent Crater in Arizona. The Crater is a model of a rocket that was launched in the early 20th century.
He bought many years ago after carefully searching for the ultimate unspoiled area which he felt was much or most related to cosmos. On top of the old volcano he has constructed a most interesting installation of various sky spaces. It's not yet open for the public but he is preparing to do so within a couple of years time. You walk through tunnels Not really knowing if you walk slightly up or down, but always towards a light, which you think is something vertically on a wall. But as you come closer, you start to experience the round circle is actually an elliptical hole in the ceiling of a space and not a light fixture on a wall.
And as you look up into the sky, your eye and brain will react with a sensation of a complementary colour to the interior colour of the space, which is psychedelic. Cameras cannot capture this phenomena and will always render, just render the colour of the actual skies as in this image. He brings really forward the whole issue observing colour as described by Newton in a scientific way, or as Goethe suggests via your senses. So here's just an example of his many sky spaces. He has designed around 80 sky spaces, some very small ones and some very large ones.
They all have a hole up in the ceiling, and that hole is very, very thin, with a thin rim, so you will not experience that it has a structure and construction. Okay, these are all the examples. So here we come to the project that I had the pleasure to work with him, preparing the concept for this new major installation. And even though he works as an artist, I believe he is as well a skilled architect.
The scheme developed into various underground spaces, which should have a culmination in a dome with a size of almost 40 meters in diameter. Pantheon, I believe, is 50. And the skyspace shall, as Pantheon, have an open hole in the middle. So we developed this scheme with three spaces that evolved into this master plan, where the dome itself sits further out than the museum itself.
This is a sketch from... From early stages it has become larger than this. It's just a round space where you're really taken into and you can sit like the Quakers around the circle and just in silence if you want to observe the fantastic sensation of this complementary phenomena when you look up into the sky. So you will be able to look up maybe in a complete light blue sky and...
The way then the interior of the space will be lidded with color, that sensation of the sky will completely change and you may see orange or other colors up there, which obviously cannot be photographed. So these last two images that I will show you is how the scheme is evolving now. It may change a little bit, but you will see that it's...
It's ending up with a little hill, a hill where that space is both underneath but above as well. So it can have several functions. From the exterior, you can experience it as this hole, and then you will go into it and experience another fantastic thing. But thanks.
Thank you.