The competition called for an expanded central library that utilized Gunnar Asplund’s orginal building while providing space for the organization’s expanded collection. Three other buildings by noted Swedish archtiects are present on the site, and the competition specified they could either be incorporated into a new design or removed.
Our reading of the site incorporated Asplund’s original concept of “the sky as a vault.” In addition to providing a bridge between the existing and the new library, the Sky Vault links the people with library personnel and the library materials. The new building extends the axis of the original library and penetrates the other existing buildings to form a new network of spaces that relate both to Asplund’s masterpiece and the existing topographic context.
