Location - Stockholm, Sweden

Our scheme for expansion first and foremost recognized Asplund’s Rotunda as the heart of the Stockholm City Library. Isolation of the new library program would render the first free library in Europe obsolete. By removing the dysfunctional annexes by Asplund and suppressing the new program, we recaptured views to the Rotunda from Odenplan Train Station and Observatory Hill from Odengatan. By removing a small west addition by Asplund, our new expansion plugged into the original Library ensuring the vitality / centrality of the iconic Rotunda for all time. Asplund’s original Bazaar “plinth” – open and free to all – was re-imagined as a more transparent, extended and expanded base for the original Rotunda as well as a leisurely park ramp up to Observatory Hill.