What to see: Stockholm City Library, Stockholm

The City Library in Stockholm is considered its architect Gunnar Asplund’s (1885-1940) greatest masterpiece and is also one of the internationally best-known Swedish works of architecture.
The interwar era saw a renewed interest in classicist architecture, a movement which came to be particularly fruitful in the Nordic countries until its monstrous misuse by totalitarian regimes and the emergence of functionalism pushed it aside. The City Library represents the peak of this “retro-classicist” trend.
Asplund began working on the library in 1920 and early sketches show a building with a more traditionally classicist façade surmounted by a dome. However, the library which was built between 1924 and 1928 found another expression.
Asplund reached back to French classicist architecture of the 1780s and 1790s, known as revolution architecture, and the City Library’s most direct “ancestor” might perhaps be found in Charles-Nicolas Ledoux’s custom house Barrière de la Villette (1786-1792) at Place de Stalingrad in Paris.
The result is a building based on pure geometrical forms. Viewed from the outside the City Library seems to have a quadratic, cubical body surmounted by a rotunda, but in fact it consists of four (originally three) rectangular wings placed around a cylindrical central block.
The City Library sits at the junction of Svea Road (Sveavägen) and Oden Street (Odengatan) and in front of it is a terrace where a staircase flanked by two functionalistic bazaar buildings (also by Asplund, 1928-1931) lead up to the Egyptian-inspired main entrance. Inside the staircase continue to the main library hall, which is to be found in the central cylinder, whereas the four wings contain reading rooms.
Three free-standing annexes were later built behind the City Libary, with entrances from Oden Street. As the City Library has now outgrown its premises, a contest for a major extension was held some years ago and won by the German architect Heike Hanada in 2007. However, such a modern extension would hardly harmonise with Gunnar Asplund’s masterpiece and it has since been decided rather to build another library elsewhere in Stockholm.

What to see: The State Hall of the Austrian National Library, Vienna

The State Hall of the Austrian National Library is rightly considered one of the world’s most beautiful libraries and also one of the best Baroque interiors in Europe. It was built for Emperor Karl VI after plans drawn up by his court architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1665-1723). It was however Fischer von Erlach’s son Joseph Emanuel (1693-1742) who saw the plans through in the years 1723-1726.
The State Hall measures 77.7 by 14.2 metres and is 19.6 metres high, except for the cupola, which reaches nearly 30 metres to the sky. The allegorical ceiling frescoes were done by Daniel Gran and completed in 1730. The motif on the central cupola shows the apotheosis of Karl VI and beneath it is a statue of the Emperor as “Hercules Musarum” by the brothers Peter and Paul Strudel.
The nutwood bookcases hold some 200,000 books printed between 1501 and 1850. The 15,000 books placed in the library’s oval centre belonged to Prince Eugen of Savoy. Altogether 7.8 million books and other items are to be found in the collections of the Austrian National Library. The Austrian National Library’s website: www.onb.ac.at

What to see: The National Library, Helsinki

The National Library of Finland (formerly the University Library) is often counted among the best – if not simply the best – of the many public buildings in Helsinki erected by the Prussian-born architect Carl Ludvig Engel (1778-1840) in the years after the Finnish capital was moved there from Turku (Åbo) in 1812, the University following in 1828.
“It is as splendid as the Senate Building but it has a dignified mightiness of a quite other sort, a lofty tranquillity of forms which one does not encounter earlier in his more richly decorated works”, the art historian Nils Erik Wickberg wrote about the library. Engel himself wrote to his nephew in 1833: “When this building is once completed, there will be not one university in Europe which will have a more beautiful library”.
Situated at Union Street opposite the entrance to the Cathedral of Helsinki and next to the University Building, the National Library was built between 1836 and 1840. However the interior decoration took such a long time that it was only in 1845 that the library could be taken in use.
From the main entrance one enters through a vestibule into the library’s central room, the Cupola Hall, which was inspired by Roman baths (photo 4). It is surmounted by a cupola which is 21 metres high (photo 5). On either side it is flanked by two long, rectangular, barrel-vaulted reading rooms – the North Hall can be seen in the sixth picture, the South Hall in the seventh. All three rooms are surrounded by stucco marble columns and together they “make up the most beautiful suite of rooms in the secular architecture of Finland”, Wickberg wrote.
The painted decorations on the vaults were added only in 1881, but correspond quite well with Engel’s ideas. In 1906-1907 the building was supplemented by an annex, the Rotunda, at the rear of the building. The Rotunda is by the architect Gustaf Nyström and blends in beautifully with Engel’s architecture. Underground storage rooms were built in 1950s and in 2000 and today the neighbouring Fabiania building is also at the National Library’s disposal.