Library as an urban experience: convivial and enclosed

Abstract

This paper takes up the Helsinki Central Library as a ‘key’ for analysing the role of a public building within the city fabric. The library was opened in 2018, designed by ALA Architects, and the building was given the name Oodi (Ode). Its neighbours include the Helsinki Music Centre, Finlandia Hall, and Kiasma, the Museum of Contemporary Art. Opposite Oodi is the Parliament Building. As a project, Oodi associates with other new libraries which have been built during the 2000s to capital cities as Amsterdam or Oslo. 

The motivation to focus on Oodi is based on the notion that this library is often described, and indeed appears to function in a manner that recalls an urban square, rather than an enclosed building. According to Oodi’s webpages “It is a library of a new era, a living and functional meeting place open for all. … Oodi is a venue for events, a house of reading and a diverse urban experience.” The openness is highlighted by the head architect of the building, who states: “Oodi is one of the most open buildings of Helsinki, even of the Nordics, where the user can do multiple things, and take initiative of what they wish to do.” As a point of comparison, for example, Acar et al. (2020) describe urban squares in a way, that could easily be from Oodi’s webpages, if the word square was replaced with library: “squares define the focal points in gathering spaces within the urban texture, and that the presence of occupants in the squares and the surrounding buildings renders the space a safe and welcoming environment.” 

Two approaches are used to unravel the notion that Oodi is inherently open and public. First, a theoretical term which is helpful for analysing what the building aims to ‘do’, is conviviality. The term has been used in urban studies internationally, while it appears to have been under-used in the Finnish context. (In Nordic context, for example Arp Fallov & Jørgensen (2018) have written about societal integrative processes, also referring to conviviality.) Conviviality, defined as art and practice of living together or as character synonym of sociability, describes extremely well how people are expected to behave in this library – and for almost all the time, they appear to conform with the expectations.  

The other, more practically orientated method to analyse what Oodi ‘does’ as part of the city fabric, is studying the alternative sites that were considered for the new central library. The debate for the site of a new library took several decades, during which several suitable sites were proposed. 

In sum, this paper proposes that a physical, tangible space can stand as the pillar space of urban experience, thus flipping around the notion that an ideal type of open public space would be a square. Instead, a truly open space where individual people can spend time together, choosing themselves whether to take contact to the others, can exist within the enclosed walls of library.