Helsinki built a library that connects the entire city
In a country where half of the citizens visit the library every month, the Oodi library offers a model for promoting people’s convergence.
This story was originally republished by Reasons to be happy.
When Andy Johansen visited Helsinki for the first time Library of Ood At the beginning of 2020, he was amazed by the elegant three-story mass of wood, steel and glass and the labyrinth of wonders inside.
“I think it’s so creative and innovative,” says 41-year-old Danish Johansen, who was working as a social worker in the Finnish capital at the time. “I’ve never seen anything else like it.”
Two steel arches span more than 100 meters and create a fully enclosed, column-free public entrance; the wooden facade is clad with 33 mm thick Finnish fir planks. There are all kinds of curious, Alice in Wonderland-strange places to sit – or even lie down – while flipping through a book.
Among the many amenities, Johansen drew attention to the library’s 3D printers, laser cutters and equipment for digital wood carving. But over time, he realized that the library offers a more radical and increasingly rare service: a free and equal public space.
“Students can sit and study and just hang out,” he explains. “Or you can let your kids walk and play. I always spend time there with my daughter. It’s more of a cultural space. You don’t have to spend anything.”
Since its opening in December 2018, Oodi has started to write a new chapter in the history of public space. Instead of being just a warehouse for books, it is an alternative work and learning space, a cultural and community center, and a platform for democracy and civic initiatives. Anyone can enter and use the facilities, many of which are free, without ID.
“The challenge has been to update the use and needs of a library stuck in a physical layout,” says Harri Annala, Oodi’s librarian, who has worked in Helsinki since 2005. “We didn’t want to live in the romantic past, when libraries were considered holy churches of knowledge.”
The country’s flagship library – located opposite the parliament in a gesture by the architects to show that learning is as important as politics – aims to “embrace technology and progressive values” to offer a range of innovative services alongside its reference collection. . In fact, the 17,250 square meter building houses relatively few books – about 100,000. Two-thirds of its space is devoted to public services, such as a cinema, recording studios, a maker space, and the organization of exhibitions and events.
As part of an extensive research phase, Oodi’s designers toured libraries and cultural centers around the world, from Korea to Seattle, and worked particularly closely with the Danish city of Aarhus and its Dokk library.
Those decades of insights have been condensed into one building, like a lifetime embedded in the words of a novel. The ground floor of Oodi, which has a restaurant, cinema, chess boards and event spaces, is intended as an extension of the nearby Kansalaistore, which encourages social mixing. The second floor, filled with workspaces, game rooms, tools and instruments, is for noisy creative activity. And the open-plan top floor, illuminated by circular skylights, is a traditional but beautiful reading room called “book heaven” and is connected by a panoramic terrace.
With the explosive growth of digital technology and cuts in spending on municipal services, many fear the disappearance of the traditional library. In the United States, the use of public libraries decreased by 31 percent in eight years The Freckle Reportand in Great Britain it is now 70% less than in 2000. However, Finland’s large investment in the public library system is contrary to the pattern of the United States and Britain, and Ood’s success is a welcome twist.
In 2019, the first full year of operation, Oodi had 3.1 million visits – much more than the expected 2.5 million. The events also attracted crowds: 7,000 events attracted more than 300,000 participants, including story lessons and book readings, as well as chair training, language cafes and comic book courses. Pandemic closures have inevitably led to a decrease in usage, but growth is expected next year.
The library’s success is the result of more than two decades of participatory design and consultation, putting the public at the center of the conversation, creating a library designed not for them, but with them. Already in 1998, the then Minister of Culture Claes Andersson proposed a new library, the preliminary studies of which will take place slowly over the next decade. Construction began in 2015 and was completed by the end of 2018.
The scale of this collective planning process was extensive, says Virve Hyysalo, whose dissertation examined the birth of Oodi together with more than 3,000 citizens. The process included the crowdsourcing of ideas in the “Tree of Dreams for the Central Library” project (both a digital platform and a real tree that travels around the city at various city events), allowing citizens to vote and comment on the library’s architectural design. , and participatory budgeting, which enabled citizens to share 100,000 euros from Oodi’s budget.
“It was important for us to be able to motivate citizens in a new way,” says Hyysalo. “We didn’t want to offer surveys or other fairly traditional participation activities that the public sector and administration usually use to engage citizens, but to try and find more interesting, creative and effective ways to apply co-planning.”
For example, in a city with harsh winters and only six hours of sunlight per day, participants emphasized that creating non-commercial spaces such as meeting and work rooms in the city center was key. However, you couldn’t take everything with you. For example, some audience members requested a quiet meditation room, but there simply wasn’t room.
Johansen, who now lives in Copenhagen, still returns to Helsinki every couple of months and always goes to the library with his daughter. “Oodi is perhaps the biggest example of a new kind of library,” he says. “And it’s not just what’s inside, the design itself is stunning.”
The legal framework enabling Finland’s approach is known as library act, which outlines key goals, such as improving literacy, making information easily accessible to the public and promoting equality. This comprehensive, participatory method has paid off: Public libraries are the most popular cultural institutions in Finland. Some 50% of citizens use the library at least once a month and 20% weekly.
Despite Oodi’s enviable success, however, others in the industry argue that to stem the decline of libraries, instead of experimental modern services, the authorities should just invest in books. The Oodi’s significant cost is perhaps something others may not be able to afford: 98 million euros (about $97 million).
“The heart of it is understanding what people want from a library: it’s books,” says Tim Coates, publisher of the Freckle Report and former head of the British bookstore chain Waterstones. “But the library profession has said that the books are not important. The collections have become worse and worse.”
According to Coates, a combination of public spending cuts and the advent of the Internet led to libraries destroying their collections. His research has shown that since 2010, the number of available public library books in US libraries has decreased by 140 million. Behind their collapse has been a focus on digitization and innovation, he states and points to an example Library of BirminghamThe £188 million ($216 million) facility opened nine years ago and has halved book borrowing. “Libraries are in a very serious situation. It’s uncertain,” he says.
Still, those working on Ood believe that by making citizens and residents the authors of libraries, it has provided users with exactly what they want, one that matches a very broad demographic, cultural and socio-economic background, and has led to a sense of ownership. “We professional librarians didn’t decide to create this,” says Annala. “It belongs to them. It’s clear if you look at how popular Oodi is now.”
According to Annala, this adaptability and openness are key in all successful library modernization – and not just in duplicating Ood. The same applies to Oodi itself, which is constantly being worked on: the audience’s use of the workshops is currently being analyzed and changes will be made over time.
“It’s a constant development,” adds Annala. “Creating a copy of the ode elsewhere will not work individually. It will be different everywhere. You have to involve the audience to see what would be useful. It won’t stay the same.”
Peter Yeung is a contributing editor for Reasons to be Cheerful and has written for publications including the Guardian, LA Times and the BBC.