Zhengxin Fang

Interiors Building Cities

Stockholm City Library: A New Layer of Time

How can architectural heritage adapt to an ever-changing society?

Libraries' societal roles have continually evolved, shifting from temples of books to community complexes. The Stockholm City Library, though groundbreaking in its time, no longer meets contemporary expectations and risks becoming a relic of the past. Do we need to build another library? 

This project challenges the original brief for expansion, arguing that before we build new, we must first know what to do with the old. By implementing precise interventions, the proposal seeks to complete the narrative of the existing building, rebalancing, restoring and reclaiming it as a contemporary library.

The former service areas are transformed into a new front, featuring an atrium and a ground-floor foyer. The neglected car park is reimagined as a garden—a new centrepiece that is in constant dialogue with the existing geometry. The intertwined layers of the past and the present create a four-dimensional experience for the City Library, bringing it into a new phase of life for the future.

More information