Stadsbiblioteket

Malmö Stadsbibliotek was founded in the beginning of the 18th century. In 1905 the library was opened and in 1914 the section for children were built in relation with Baltiska Utställningen. Not until 1946 the library was moved to the red brick building that goes under the name Slottet. The city library is located at Kung Oscars Väg and is originally designed by John Smedberg och Fredrik Sundbärg. It didn’t take more than decay before the library had expanded and needed more space; in 1991 an architectural competition was arranged with the purpose to develop the library building. The Danish architect Henning Larsen won the competition and the new building were connected right to Slottet. The construction of the new building was started in 1994 and was inaugurated the 31 of May by the then prime minister Göran Persson. The new building is called Ljusets Kalender and is a large and airy cube made out of steel and glass. The part that links the two buildings is called Cylindern, and contains the entrée, information and counters for returning books and a café. The old main library was restored also by Henning Larsen and in September 1999 it was inaugurated. At that time the entire old and new library was finished; 10 850 square meters for a cost of 236 million Swedish crones. The library has become internationally famous within architecture and has been nominated to one of the world most beautiful libraries by the library organization IFLA. In Sweden it has been rewarded with the prestige award called Kasper Salin priset. The library contains about 600 000 different media, from youthful magazines, foreign press, audio books, music, non-fiction and fiction books. They were also first in Sweden with lending video games.

For those who wish to learn more about design history or architecture you can visit the design section at floor number two, were exhibitions and wide information about modern design can be found. At floor number four you will find municipal information about Malmoe, and also literature about Malmoe’s architectural history.

www.malmo.se/bibliotek