Essen's Central Library Moves Into an Old Department Store
Essen, a city in western Germany, has a new Central Library, and it fills all six floors of a former department store. Dezeen reports that the building covers 11,000 square metres, roughly 118,000 square feet.
The library occupies the Boeckerhaus, a shop building on Kennedyplatz in the city centre. It replaces an older library and moves the service to a more central spot. The Dutch architecture firm MVRDV designed the project in collaboration with Meyer Architekten, and it worked with the design studio includi on the interior.
The most striking feature inside is the shelving. Dezeen describes red bookcases arranged in clusters that mark out different zones. MVRDV calls these clusters "media villages", and the shade of red gets lighter on each level as you move up the building.
Each floor has its own purpose. The first floor has soft play areas, padded spaces for small children. The second floor has gaming pods, and the third has hobby zones for activities such as crafts and making things.
The outside of the building is wide open. Large bands of glass let people look in from the street, and a continuous strip of study spaces runs along the facade, the outer face of the building. MVRDV announced the project in a post on its Facebook page on 21 October.
MVRDV describes the library as a "third place", a space that is neither home nor work or school, where people can gather and spend time. The firm says the building is meant to become a cultural hub. The City of Essen has said the new Central Library will be an open house for all residents, focused on inspiration, education and culture.
For a city library, that is a lot of floor space to fill with readers, gamers and hobbyists. The people who will use it most are the ones who will decide whether the "third place" idea works in practice.
