A Space for the Future - Library Buildings in the 21st Century
Helsinki, Finland, June 2 - 3, 2002

A new central library in Copenhagen
By Borge Sorensen

The city of Copenhagen has never built a central library. In its 115 years history the library has never been placed in its own building, built for library purposes. Before the Second World War it was housed in a church, later on in two churches, after that in an office building and at present in an old department store. The latter is not the worst location, a modern library is in fact kind of a department store, but of course it is not optimal. The best is a building built and organized as a library.

The nineties have seen a lot of cultural investments in the Copenhagen region. A new extension of the Royal Library, a couple of new art museums, a renovation of the national museum and not least - a very elegant and beautiful library building in Malmö, the biggest and most impressive new public library building in Scandinavia. A new opera house and a new national theatre scene are right now in progress. So we figured that the political and economic climate was ripe for a new Copenhagen central library.

Exactly two years ago, we - the city architect and myself - raised the topic in a newspaper article. Somehow it got the ball rolling, and now we are so far that we in a city hall committee aim for an architectural competition in the year 2003 or 2004. Our time schedule is that there should be a new-built central library in the year 2008 - for the first time in the history of Copenhagen.

The last year has seen, though, a worsening of the political and even the economic environment in Denmark. There is a new government in office, a government not so keen on cultural progress, and not so keen, which is worse, in giving grants or advantages to the capital of Denmark, Copenhagen. Instead, it seems that the money are rolling to the sparsely populated areas in the outskirts of the country, if they are rolling at all. Or they are used for the benefit of a hungry health sector, pensions for the older part of the population or for education. In spite of that, we have kept speed, and to my great joy we do really have local politicians backing up so far.

Two decisions we do not have yet. The first is the financing, and we are talking here of around 350-400 mill DKr - the equivalent of about 50 mill Euro, for a building of 20.000 m2. And the second decision we are lacking, is the actual location. Right now we are discussing two different locations, both of them inside the frame of the inner city, with excellent public transportation nearby, and a lot of parking space around.

I prefer a location on Israels Place, right in the centre of the city’s old northern gate, which was torn down in the last century. It is a location just besides a new Metro station, down to a very popular park which is the meeting place for the gays of Copenhagen, and right beside the new food market place of the city. A brilliant place for 1.5 to 2 million visitors a year. Well, it doesn't seem to be the exact position of the local inhabitants. They have already been stirred up, and a couple of public objections have been made. Those rather few people (not more than 50) are well-educated lawyers, journalists, and a former member of parliament, and are used to put their objections in a very intelligent and hard-hitting way. We are trying to handle this. One of our main arguments in that discussion is, that a library in itself is one of the biggest open public spaces in a city. So, if you are looking upon a library as a building blocking people from open space and fresh air, it is not correct. On the contrary, a good million people will in a library find an accessible open space to gain benefit from.

In order to get a bit more substance into the ideas, the library asked the city architects to make a prospect of those two locations, to find out if there actually was enough space to build a 20.000 m2 building. And also do some initial thinking of how and when. The result was a little appetizer, which we have used frequently as documentation and as public relation for the idea of a new central library. Basically it shows that there are enough space at the two locations.

At both places it will need a very intriguing entrepreneurial work, as the one location is above a huge parking garage dug 3 floors into the ground, so that the usual solution of having magazines in the basement of the building cannot be used. We found a rather good, but not new, solution to that problem, as we do believe that collections not frequently used can be placed at one side of the building instead of under it.

The other location is a bit more tricky, because we do have three former transformer buildings (rather small) which, as they are to be preserved, have to be part of the new library. But also this is a clear possibility, and the overall design of the building can benefit from that inclusion of three transformer stations. In two of those transformers right now the national theatre have a scene/stage but in 2007 they will move to another location near by, where there are to be built a new national scene. Parking space for that theatre and for the library could be dug out under the library building, so that the parking problem could be solved in the same instant.

We are ambitious regarding the architectural expression of the new library. Besides being a remarkable and beautiful building, some kind of a cultural business card for the city, it should of course be functional, adapted to the purpose and first of all flexible. It will be a house with huge collections, a multimedia house - but it will also be a digital/virtual junction, where Copenhageners and other people can connect the catalogue, and the different net services, including an automatic, digital ordering and reservation service. That latter part of the library service we do expect to have an increasing impact, so in the future we will deliver electronic texts and music/pictures directly to home computers. But we will also function as some kind of supply-station for physical materials ordered or reserved electronically.

The architectural expression of the library should signal open, inviting even democratic values to the visitors. We should avoid the monumental, elitist expression from la Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, or the same from our own National Library in Copenhagen. It is our aspiration to signal a truly popular institution, a friendly one. All the demands mentioned here are to be put into the requirements for an architectural competition. We hope that the competition can be kept next year, and that there will be a result at the latest in the year 2004. We have not decided yet if it will be an open competition, which can give the most unpredictable, and exciting result; or an invited competition, the outcome of which normally are more stable and secure, but not so exciting.

It is of course very early to predict how we will organise the content of the new library. With all reservations, and as I see it now, there will be a rather big part called the experience area of the library. It will be the popular meeting point, it will be the place for the children, music, art and fiction. It will be an area of the library with exhibitions, author meetings, and all that kind of noisy, colourful things. It will be the place where you can lend or download films, music, talking books etc. And it will be the part of the library, which looks most like something you know to day.

Another part will be the facts area of the library. The collections, and medias containing specialised literature, videos, CD-ROM. Also a physical part of the library, where the customer can gain benefit of literature and other medias covering a wide range of issues; and it is also a place we know to day.

The third part is the information area. Here you can get your information, business information, European Union information, local history information etc. It is the part of the library which is heavily digitised, and the area between the virtual and the physical library. Here you can search the Internet, you can use computers for all kinds of relevant work, and it is here you can get a working place, where you can plug in your own computer.

But it is also the part of the library, from where we will organise our virtual services. It is from the information area where from your own computer you can call up a certain electronic text and a certain piece of music. And we will organise it to be sent to your computer free of charges. It requires a contract with the producers of music and text – a license or a paid price per piece of music – and to get that we must secure that the actual text or music cannot be downloaded to other computers and that it will vanish from your computer within a certain time – say one month. In August this year in Copenhagen we will start a service for music like this, in collaboration with a London-based music publisher.The virtual part of our services are still at a developing stage. But the aim is clear, to cut down obstacles between user and producer. And let the library be the users navigator.

The last, but not the least interesting part of the library is the logistic area. It is here you as a customer can handle your different duties with the library, preferably self service return and lending. It is here you can get your pre-reserved books or articles, and it is here you can get the materials ordered via inter-library loans from different academic libraries. It is a big issue in many Danish libraries right now, that in cities containing universities and educational institutions, the students are leaning heavily on the central library to get their information from other, mostly academic libraries. We are developing a situation where we tend to be a supply junction for all kinds of materials coming from our own public library systems, and also to a great extent coming from other, mostly academic, libraries.

In the Copenhagen area there are about 80.000 students, of a population of 600.000. Not all 80.000 are university students, two thirds are attending other high-level or semi-level institutions. Their demands have had and still have a tremendous impact on our services. In a couple of decades we have had professional concerns about letting students gain that impact, what about the ordinary man, the old Mrs. Jensen! For my part, I see the students as our future customers. We are now harvesting in a field where schoolchildren in hundreds of thousands have been told about the blessings of public libraries. And best of all – they keep coming. They even love us so much, that they give up their academic libraries because they don’t provide them with the services the public library does. We intend to keep them, nourish them and gain our benefit from them.

The basic goal of all this – new building, virtual library and new technology is very old fashioned, and at the same time very new – it is people’s enlightenment. One hundred years ago former colleagues created public libraries with one aim – to make the book a working tool for everybody – literally speaking everybody - and basically free of charge. Now one hundred years later we are in the middle of an enormous task – to learn a couple of generations of people to use the new technology, and to organise the new technology so it can benefit everybody, and still be free of charge. In this century, this is indeed the people’s enlightenment.

To sum up. We are preparing an architectural competition for a new central library of 20.000 m2. We do hope to have a new library in 2008. I will issue an invitation to you all for March 31st, 4.30 pm. Hopes are high, and colors are flying.

Børge Sørensen