Library Buildings around the World

Library Hollola, Hollola – Finland 2004
1.920m2
Architects: arkkitehtitoimisto Nurmela, Raimoranta, Tasa Oy / Jyrki Tasa, Teemu Tuomi
The library building is situated in the centre of Hollola and encloses the northern edge of Market Square. The building is organised
on a single floor, but on the side of the square the eave height reaches nine metres. This helps provide enclosure for the square and to
give the library a status of a public building. The main entrance is at the centre of the square-facing side, below a great clock. The
newspaper reading room and children’s story-telling room have large windows, which direct their orientation towards the Market
Square. The red curtain of the story-telling room, hung from an undulating rail, adds colour and an element of change to the silver
and black facades. The rectangular plan of the library is subdivided into an open lending library-reading room space and a work
and staff zone, with services at the interface of the two. Public facilities that can be closed off include the children’s fairytale room,
the reference reading room, the exhibition and conference space and the music room. On Sundays only the newspaper reading room
is open to the public, while the other spaces are shut off with sliding partitions. The design of the lending library is airy and light.
Sufficient height, rooflights, large window surfaces directing the orientation of the space towards the park and the light colour of the
floor are the means used to achieve this effect. By a combination of direct and indirect lighting this atmosphere can also be achieved
in the evening with artificial lighting. Fixtures, designed by the office, placed on the bookshelves provide the indirect lighting in the
space. In order to define distinctive fields of space for different functions in the main hall and to provide spatial variety, we have
given its ceiling an undulating profile. The height of the interior space varies, being the greatest in the area of the central functions
and then descending to more intimate level above the smaller departments. The form of the ceiling is a ruled surface, which in
addition to the undulating profile also has a variable lateral angle. (http://www.e-architect.co.uk)
Käpy and Simo Paavilainen Architects, Helsinki – Finland
http://www.ark-paavilainen.fi
Libraries:
Tritonia Science Library, Vaasa – Finland 2001
8.000 m²
The Tritonia Academic Library in Vaasa is a joint venture between three universities: the University of Vaasa, Åbo Akademi/Unit of
Ostrobothnia and the Vaasa Unit of the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration. The one building also houses a
Learning Centre that jointly supports teaching and study at the three universities. Moreover, Tritonia connects two languages and
cultures – the different Finnish and Swedish traditions.
The library and the Learning Centre on the campus area on the shore of the Gulf of Bothnia were opened to the public on 20. August
2001. The library’s prime customers are the universities’ teachers, researchers and students, but anyone seeking scientific
information is welcome. As the biggest academic library within three neighbouring provinces, Tritonia serves various other
educational establishments, adult learners, the business sector and individuals. It co-operates with the libraries of two polytechnics in
Vaasa and with Vaasa city/regional library, and it maintains the regional web library (www.uwasa.fi/~sukkula).
The first part of the name Tritonia refers to the number three, and the whole name to the fact that the building stands by the sea. In
Greek mythology Triton was a son of the sea-god Poseidon and, according to some myths, tritons are the male equivalents of
mermaids.
Tritonia encloses 35,890 m3, and its total floor area is 7,997 m2, of which the library and Learning Centre have a net area of 5,500
m2. The library was designed by the architectural bureau of Käpy and Simo Paavilainen, and the main contractor was NCC Finland
Oy. The building proprietor, Senaattikiinteistöt Oy, has selected the library as Building of the Year 2001 out of its 130-odd projects.
Planning
The three universities at Vaasa are all rather young. The University of Vaasa, with some 4,200 students and four faculties, started as
a school of economics in 1968; it became a multidisciplinary college at the start of the 1980s, and a university ten years later. Åbo
Akademi has its main a ctivities in Turku, but branched out to Vaasa in 1974; today around 1,800 students attend its two faculties
here. In 1980,the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration expanded from Helsinki to Vaasa, where it now has
about 500 students.
As long ago as 1981-2 a working group appointed by the Ministry of Education was considering how co-operation could be
developed between the various units operating in Vaasa. Their key suggestion was that a common academic library should be
founded, to be operational in 1984. The proposal was way ahead of its time; nowhere else was there anything similar, so the matter
was postponed… but not forgotten. In the mid-1980s the library became part of the architectural competition for the new campus,
and early in the 1990s a common database was planned, though it could not be achieved until the next generation of computer
systems arrived.
The academic library was part of the second building phase on the campus. To design it functionally a planning group consisting of
representatives of the three universities was appointed: two of its members were professors, one was head of the Office of Student
Affairs and three came from the libraries; additional experts were a students’ representative, the property manager, a computer
specialist and an external mentor with excellent knowledge of managing university libraries. This planning group further appointed
several subgroups to plan the internal operations. The groups worked closely together with the architects and also visited, for
instance, research libraries in Stockholm and some libraries under construction on the campuses of Helsinki University. Library
staff went on study tours to new libraries and learning centres in the Netherlands, Germany and Great Britain.
Regulations and financing
The rectors of the three universities signed the library agreement in December 1998. This is complemented by a set of guiding
principles, which were separately approved by the boards of all three universities in the spring of 2001. Immediately after approving
the guiding principles the universities appointed their representatives for the library board. At its first meeting the board approved
the library’s operating regulations that define its internal organisation.
The regulations stipulate that the library costs are shared according to the number of students, researchers and The Tritonia
Academic Library New ways of organizing libraries teachers in each university. These figures are taken from the Ministry of
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