Library Design: British Architects Unveil State-Of-The-Art Arctic Library in Norway

From The Guardian:

It’s an unusual view to behold from a municipal library. The midday sun hangs just above the horizon, casting a heavenly glow across the water, beneath a sky streaked with pink, orange and blue. A foreground of fishing huts and boats armed with whaling harpoons completes the picture, which could come straight from a Visit Norway tourist brochure.
But this is an unlikely project: a new £110m library [Stormen bibliotek] and concert hall in the Arctic town of Bodø (population 50,000), designed by a small London practice whose most substantial built work prior to winning the contract was an office extension in Sheffield.
“It was quite a leap in scale, for us and the town,” says David Howarth, director of DRDH architects, which won the project in a competition in 2009. “It was a stark contrast to be working on this in the UK, just as libraries were being closed by the dozen and procurement processes make it impossible for small practices to win work of this size.”

Read the Complete Article
Where is Bodø, Norway? (via Google Maps)
See Also: Library’s Web Site (Norwegian) ||| Library’s Web Site in English (via Google Translate)
Video Tour of the New Library
Note: Narration in Norwegian

Velkommen til Stormen bibliotek from Bodø kommune on Vimeo.

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