Malmö City Library

Malmö City Library has almost 1 million visitors each year and is as well-known for its beautiful architecture as for how it seeks out new ways to offer knowledge and entertainment in a multicultural Malmö. The library has been rewarded with several prizes such as Library of the Year in Sweden, the Swedish National Encyclopedia’s Knowledge Award and Malmö City’s Integration Prize, among other things for using the services of multilingual upper secondary school students to help visitors who cannot speak Swedish.

The library has more than 600.000 media: books in some 60 different languages, magazines and newspapers from all over the world, cd’s, films, video games and talking books. There are special departments for the environment, travel and design. Using Malmö City Library’s webcatalogue users can renew loans, make reservations and subscribe to RSS-feeds to get newslists over new material. The catalogue is also available via WAP. Malmö City Library focuses on serving the needs of the business community and is also one of the European Commission’s Europe Direct information relay centres. Many free events for both children and adults are organized at the library every year.

Malmö City Library is characterised by its trisection with regard to both volume and light presentation. The name “Calendar of Light”, architect Henning Larsen’s competition entry in 1992, is expressive and refers to the open room on the west side of the grand glass building as its undisputed heart. The “Castle”, on the east side, which was built in 1901 as a museum and has acted as library since 1946, contrasts with its introversion with the extroversion of the great hall. The “Cylinder” in the middle of the composition of three building entities, acts as the main entrance and the link between the two principal parts.

The two new parts were opened in the spring of 1997, the old “Castle” was refurbished and reopened in the autumn of 1999.

Architechts: Original building 1901: John Smedberg
Extension and rebuilding: Henning Larsen Tegnestue A/S