A Place for Discovery, Open to Knowledge and to the World

The Montarville – Boucher la Bruère Public Library is located in the downtown core of Boucherville, a town of 40,000 situated on the banks of the St. Lawrence River just east of the Island of Montreal. Built more than 25 years ago, the municipal library needs to expand and reconfigure its existing facilities so that it can better pursue its mission and provide services in accordance with new and emerging social, cultural and technological trends.
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Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects have revealed new visuals of the Shanghai East Library. In 2016, the practice won a three stage international competition to design the new public library that will sit adjacent to Century Park in the east part of the city. The project officially broke ground on Wednesday 27 September.

The 115,000m² library, located in Pudong District – the area of the city known for its iconic skyline, will sit immediately next to Century Park -the largest park in the city spread over 140 hectares. With increasing visitor numbers, the need for a new public library was imminent; the new east branch of Shanghai Library will serve 4 million visitors a year, host more than 1,200 lectures and activities as well as being home to 4.8 million books.

The project is conceived as a singular monolithic object floating above the tree canopy within the park. The main library volume floats above two pavilions that will house a 1000 seat performance venue, exhibition and events space and a dedicated children’s library, that will all open up towards a series of landscaped courtyards and gardens.
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Zhongshu Bookstore in Suzhou, designed by Yu Ting, is the newest one of its brand since the first opened five years ago. The new bookstore is divided into four main zones and several subdivided zones. Aiming to create a colorful new world by using symbolism, the architect gave a unique character to each zone: The Sanctuary of Crystal for new arrivals; The Cave of Fireflies for recommendations; The Xanadu of Rainbows for reading room; The Castle of Innocence for children books.
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With high illiteracy rate in Indonesia and lack of reading facilities, SHAU -a multi-awarded rising architecture practice- started a mission: to rekindle interest in books by offering a designed place for reading paired with multiple community activities.
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The cultural importance of the public library lies within the inherent power of the knowledge which it holds. This knowledge can be a significant life-altering force for the patrons of the library and furthermore within the larger community which it serves. The methods by which this information is contained and transmitted are continually evolving, yet the correlation between access to such information and issues such as upward social mobility and increased life opportunity are evident.
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schmidt hammer lassen architects wins competition to design the New Cultural Centre and Library in Karlshamn, Sweden

The New Cultural Centre and Library in Karlshamn, Sweden, is designed to gather the city’s cultural functions under one roof. schmidt hammer lassen architects has just won an international competition to design this 5,000 square metre cultural centre. Karlshamn will get a sculptural and flexible building containing a library, an exhibition area, a cinema, a tourist office and a café. It will be the city’s new meeting place and will embrace diversity.
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© dbox_Foster + partners

he New York Public Library today unveiled proposals for the integration of the Circulating Library into its flagship Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42nd Street – Lord Foster presented the plans at the launch of the public exhibition.

The project aims to safeguard the building’s legacy and precious books for future generations. The existing research library will be retained as it is today, with more space for researchers, as will many of the public spaces – the project will open twice as much of the building to the public and will restore the logic of the Neo-Classical design to improve the experience of the library’s historic halls. The two circulating collections will be housed in a spectacular new space previously occupied by book stacks.
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The winning projects in 12 of the awards categories have been announced, including a library clad with firewood, a house covered in plants and three projects in Singapore. The winners have been selected from over 300 shortlisted entries in the sections of completed buildings, landscape and future projects. The completed buildings will also go forward to compete for the prize of World Building of the Year 2012, chosen by a jury that includes architects Ben van Berkel, Moshe Safdie, Mok Wei Wei, Jürgen Mayer, Yvonne Farrell and Kenzo Tange.

The judges decided that Liyuan Library in China, designed by Li Xiaodong Atelier, was the best cultural building at WAF. They praised the ‘simple inventive work’ which was, they said ‘deliberately respectful of nature’ and which works very well for its community. It was, they said, ‘very beautfiul and properly sustainable’ as well as very sensitive.
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