Inauguration of new university library

Wednesday, September 10, saw the official opening of Copenhagen University’s new Humanities Library. Dissing+Weitling has designed the building which – with its 500 readers’ desks and some of the Danish Royal Library’s most sophisticated archive rooms – is  certain to become a pivotal point on Copenhagen University’s new Amager campus.

User based design
The new humanities faculty library offers the many humanities students recently arriving at or returning to campus after the summer break a well designed, functional library building designed with singular focus on creating the optimum facility based on users’ needs.
The architects from Dissing+Weitling’s project group have liaised closely throughout the entire process with a user group of Royal Library employees. Architects and users have met monthly to discuss functionality and work flow with a view to developing optimum design solutions catering for the needs of both employees and students.

‘It has been a challenging  and very interesting process for everyone  concerned. The user group has been deeply involved and constructive; and based on its input we have designed a bespoke building tailored to the way in which students study and meet, yet one which also offers employees a pleasant and inspiring working environment,’ says Stig Mikkelsen, project architect and Dissing+Weitling partner.

The result of this intensive planning and design process is a building characterised by flexibility, airy openness and simple, clear definition. The three open floors have been laid out with incremental noise levels in mind – from easy socialising in the lounge and café areas to group study areas and finally to the library reading rooms designated for “quiet” use where students can concentrate completely on individual study.

73 km of cultural heritage safeguarded in climate controlled archive rooms
In addition to its study and reading facilities the new faculty library building houses three large archive rooms for Royal Library books and records. The first of these, erected as part of phase one of the project built in 1998, houses 45 km of book shelves. Phase two includes a further two archive rooms with – between them – 28 additional km of shelving affording storage conditions with optimum temperature and relative humidity control, including one archive at 2 C for particularly sensitive audiovisual material.

Award winning architecture
The opening of the new humanities library marks the completion of a long term project started by the Danish Ministry of Culture in 1989. The project attracted international attention even at this early stage, and Dissing+Weitling received the prestigious Japanese G mark Award for phase one of the project. With the inauguration of phase two the Ministry of Culture completes its plans and fulfils its ambition to create a combined library and archive facility designed and built to the highest architectural standard.