The Black Diamond (
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
: Den Sorte Diamant) is a modern waterfront extension to the
Royal Danish Library
The Royal Library ( da, Det Kongelige Bibliotek) in Copenhagen is the national library of Denmark and the university library of the University of Copenhagen. It is among the largest libraries in the world and the largest in the Nordic countries ...
's old building on
Slotsholmen
Slotsholmen (English: The Castle Islet) is an island in the harbour of Copenhagen, Denmark, and part of Copenhagen Inner City. The name is taken from the successive castles and palaces located on the island since Bishop Absalon constructed the ci ...
in central
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
,
Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark
...
. Its quasi-official nickname is a reference to its polished black granite cladding and irregular angles. Designed by Danish architects
Schmidt Hammer Lassen, the Black Diamond was completed in 1999 as the first in a series of large-scale cultural buildings along Copenhagen's waterfront.
Apart from its function as a library, the building houses a number of other public facilities and activities, most of which are located around the central, toplit atrium which cuts into the building with a huge glazed front facing the harbour. The facilities include a 600-seat auditorium, the Queen's Hall, used for concerts—mainly
chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...
and jazz—literary events, theatrical performances and conferences. There are also exhibition spaces, a gift shop, a café and a garden. The exhibitions are based on or inspired by the library collections and range from historical topics through contemporary photography to artist collaborations such as
Marina Abramović
Marina Abramović ( sr-Cyrl, Марина Абрамовић, ; born November 30, 1946) is a Serbian conceptual and performance artist. Her work explores body art, endurance art, feminist art, the relationship between the performer and audienc ...
and
Nick Cave
Nicholas Edward Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian singer, songwriter, poet, lyricist, author, screenwriter, composer and occasional actor. Known for his baritone voice and for fronting the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Ca ...
.
History
In the early 1990s, the
Danish Ministry of Cultural Affairs launched an international architecture competition for the design of an extension to the Royal Library on Slotsholmen. The competition attracted 178 Danish and international architectural firms and ultimately
Schmidt Hammer Lassen was chosen as the winner in 1993.
Construction started in 1995. The cost of the building was
DKK 465,000,000. The Ministry of Cultural Affairs was the builders and Moe and Brødsgaard A/S the consulting engineers.
The Black Diamond was inaugurated on 7 September 1999 and opened to the public on 15 September 1999. The Minister of Cultural Affairs at the time, Jytte Hilden, named it the Black Diamond.
Architecture
The basic shape of the Black Diamond is a box which leans to the left as seen from the harbour as well as towards the water. At the same time it expands slightly from the bottom and up and from north to south, giving it a distorted, prismatic shape.
The building is clad in black granite of a type known as Absolute Black, which was mined in
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...
and then cut and polished in Italy. The black cladding amounts to 2,500 square metres and each stone weighs 75 kg.
A broad, glazed "crevasse" cleaves the facade into two, letting natural light into the central atrium inside the building. A glazed band also runs along the building's ground floor in its full height to allow for panoramic views of the waterfront from the inside while, at the same time, aiming to give the Diamond a floating appearance when seen from the water.
The Black Diamond is separated from the old building, known as the Holm Building, by the busy thoroughfare Christians Brygge which runs along the waterfront. Several
skyway
A skyway, skybridge, skywalk, or sky walkway is an elevated type of pedway connecting two or more buildings in an urban area, or connecting elevated points within mountainous recreational zones. Urban skyways very often take the form of enclos ...
s connect the two buildings.
Atrium
In contrast to the stringent and dark exterior the
atrium
Atrium may refer to:
Anatomy
* Atrium (heart), an anatomical structure of the heart
* Atrium, the genital structure next to the genital aperture in the reproductive system of gastropods
* Atrium of the ventricular system of the brain
* Pulmona ...
creates a bright and organic central space in the library. It is
toplit and bounded by wavy balconies. From the atrium a
travelator
A moving walkway, also known as an autowalk, moving pavement, moving sidewalk, people-mover, travolator, or travelator, is a slow-moving conveyor mechanism that transports people across a horizontal or inclined plane over a short to medium distan ...
leads up to the C level which holds the main library facilities.
The Link
The Link is a connecting walkway running from the foyer of the old main building of the library through a
skywalk
A skyway, skybridge, skywalk, or sky walkway is an elevated type of pedway connecting two or more buildings in an urban area, or connecting elevated points within mountainous recreational zones. Urban skyways very often take the form of enclos ...
above Christians Brygge and the atrium along a gangway to the glazed facade with sweeping views of
Christianshavn
Christianshavn (literally, "ingChristian's Harbour") is a neighbourhood in Copenhagen, Denmark. Part of the Indre By District, it is located on several artificial islands between the islands of Zealand and Amager and separated from the rest of th ...
and
Islands Brygge
Islands Brygge (English: Iceland's Quay) is a harbourfront area in central Copenhagen, Denmark, located on the north-western coast of Amager. The neighbourhood is noted for its waterfront park Havneparken, which is one of the most popular areas ...
across the harbour.
Library facilities
The main floor of the library is the C level which is reached from the ground floor along a
travelator
A moving walkway, also known as an autowalk, moving pavement, moving sidewalk, people-mover, travolator, or travelator, is a slow-moving conveyor mechanism that transports people across a horizontal or inclined plane over a short to medium distan ...
. With the construction of the Black Diamond, the Royal Library on Slotsholmen has gained 21,500 square meters and now has six reading rooms compared to previously one and 474 reading and study seats compared to 96 prior to the extension. The Information Room holds 60 seats compared to the previous 46.
Kirkeby-broen
The circulation desk is located in the 18-metre-wide main skyway which connects the old and the new building above Christians Brygge.
The Royal Library on Slotsholmen is not a public library where it is possible to locate and pick the books from open shelves and then borrow them for use outside the library. On the contrary, the books have to be ordered either through online or by filling out a requisition form in the catalogue room. The books can then be collected the next day.
Reading rooms
The reading rooms on level C to F all face the atrium which provides them with natural light. The reading rooms each consist of double-height rooms with a projecting
mezzanine floor
A mezzanine (; or in Italian language, Italian, a ''mezzanino'') is an intermediate floor in a building which is partly open to the double-height ceilinged floor below, or which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, a loft ...
.
The purposes of
Reading Room West Reading Room West (Danish: Læsesal Vest) or The Research Reading Room at The Royal Danish Library is a part of The Danish National Library and is located in Black Diamond, the Royal Library's modern extension on Slotsholmen in Copenhagen. The his ...
is to make it possible for users to study materials from the library’s collection which are restricted to the premises, and to make a large reference collection available for them. There are 160 study seats in the reading room and it is possible to obtain a permanent seat for a specific amount of time on application. The reference collection comprises a total of 65,000 volumes distributed over two floors. The emphasis of the collection is on the humanities and theology but all the library's subject fields are covered. The room has a specially secured area where protected material may be studied. It is possible to apply for a permanent study seat for a prescribed period.
The Reading Room East has 130 study seats and its primary purpose is to give access to a large number of newspapers and periodicals and, at the same time, to provide a large number of study seats for other purposes. The preceding three years of publications of 4,000—3200 foreign and 800 Danish—periodicals are kept alphabetically along the shelves. There are 70,000 microfilm spools of both Danish and foreign newspapers. It is not possible to study restricted materials in this reading room. The target group is students and others, who require knowledge on a high level.
The two remaining reading rooms located in the Black Diamond are those of the Centre for Maps, Prints and Photographs and the Centre for Music and Theatre.
Queen's Hall
The Queen's Hall is an auditorium seating up to 600 people. It is used for a variety of purposes, including concerts, conferences, film, ballet and theatre. The hall is equipped with a variable acoustic system which adapts to the specific type of music. Thereby the sound is adjustable to greater sonorousness, with longer reverberation for classical music and shorter reverberation for rhythmic music.
Concerts
The Queen Hall is primarily intended as a venue for
classical, particularly
chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...
, but also
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
and other forms of rhythmical music is played there.
The Library has its own resident chamber music
ensemble
Ensemble may refer to:
Art
* Architectural ensemble
* ''Ensemble'' (album), Kendji Girac 2015 album
* Ensemble (band), a project of Olivier Alary
* Ensemble cast (drama, comedy)
* Ensemble (musical theatre), also known as the chorus
* ''En ...
known as the
Diamond Ensemble
Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, bu ...
which is frequently joined by international guest musicians. The repertoire includes "exhibition concerts" of musical works from the Royal Library's music archives which are the largest in the Nordic Countries.
Other concerts have been with
Trio con Brio and
Niels Lan Doky
Niels Lan Doky (born 3 October 1963) is a Danish jazz pianist, composer and producer. He is the older brother of jazz bassist Chris Minh Doky.
Biography
He was born in Copenhagen of a Danish mother and Vietnamese father. His father worked as a ...
.
International Authors' Stage
The Queen's Hall is also used for a programme of lectures by leading International writers and intellectuals, the program is curated and hosted by
Lise Bach Hansen. Upcoming or previous speakers include
Uwe Tellkamp,
Martin Walser
Martin Walser (; born 24 March 1927) is a German writer.
Life
Walser was born in Wasserburg am Bodensee, on Lake Constance. His parents were coal merchants, and they also kept an inn next to the train station in Wasserburg. He described the e ...
,
Günter Wallraff
Günter Wallraff (born 1 October 1942) is a German writer and undercover journalist.
Research methods
Wallraff came to prominence thanks to his striking journalistic research methods and several major books on lower class working conditions an ...
,
Ingo Schulze
Ingo Schulze (born 15 December 1962) is a German writer born in Dresden in former East Germany. He studied classical philology at the University of Jena for five years, and, until German reunification, was an assistant director (dramatic arts a ...
,
Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer (; born February 21, 1977) is an American novelist. He is known for his novels ''Everything Is Illuminated'' (2002), '' Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close'' (2005), '' Here I Am'' (2016), and for his non-fiction works ''Eatin ...
,
Lars Saabye Christensen
Lars Saabye Christensen (born 21 September 1953 in Oslo) is a Norwegian/Danish author.
Saabye Christensen was raised in the Skillebekk neighbourhood of Oslo, but lived for many years in Sortland in northern Norway; both places play a major r ...
,
Ben Okri
Ben Okri (born 15 March 1959) is a Nigerian-British poet and novelist.[Ben Okri"]
British Council, ...
,
Juli Zeh
Juli Zeh (, Julia Barbara Finck, née Zeh; born 30 June 1974 in Bonn) is a German writer and former judge.
Biography
Her first book was ''Adler und Engel'' (translated into English as ''Eagles and Angels'' by Christine Slenczka), which won the ...
,
Günter Grass
Günter Wilhelm Grass (born Graß; ; 16 October 1927 – 13 April 2015) was a German novelist, poet, playwright, illustrator, graphic artist, sculptor, and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Literature.
He was born in the Free City of Da ...
,
Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Wes ...
,
Siegfried Lenz
Siegfried Lenz (; 17 March 19267 October 2014) was a German writer of novels, short stories and essays, as well as dramas for radio and the theatre. In 2000 he received the Goethe Prize on the 250th Anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's bi ...
,
Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Hans Magnus Enzensberger (11 November 1929 – 24 November 2022) was a German author, poet, translator, and editor. He also wrote under the pseudonyms Andreas Thalmayr, Elisabeth Ambras, Linda Quilt and Giorgio Pellizzi. Enzensberger was regarde ...
,
Per Olov Enquist
Per Olov Enquist, also known as P. O. Enquist, (23 September 1934 – 25 April 2020) was a Swedish author. He had worked as a journalist, playwright and novelist.
Biography
Enquist was born and raised in , a village in present-day Skellef ...
,
Kristín Marja Baldursdóttir
Kristín Marja Baldursdóttir is an Icelandic writer born on 21 January 1949 in Hafnarfjörður.
Background
She received her degree in 1991 from the University of Iceland in the fields of German and Icelandic.
Writing
Her first novel ''T ...
,
Einar Már Guðmundsson
Einar Már Guðmundsson (born 18 September 1954 in Reykjavík) is an Icelandic author of novels, short stories, and poetry. His books have been translated into several languages.
Background
Guðmundsson grew up in Reykjavík. In 1979 he rece ...
,
Julia Franck
Julia Franck (born 1970, in East Berlin) is a German writer.
Life
Julia Franck, a twin, is the daughter of the actress Anna Katharina Franck and of the television producer Jürgen Sehmisch.
In 1978 the family moved to West Berlin where they s ...
,
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek (, ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, visiting professor at New Y ...
,
Åsne Seierstad
Åsne Seierstad (born 10 February 1970) is a Norwegian freelance journalist and writer, best known for her accounts of everyday life in war zones – most notably Kabul after 2001, Baghdad in 2002 and the ruined Grozny in 2006. (in Norwegian)
Pe ...
,
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan (; 8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder ...
,
Caitlin Moran
Catherine Elizabeth Moran (; born 5 April 1975) is an English journalist, author, and broadcaster at ''The Times'', where she writes three columns a week: one for the Saturday Magazine, a TV review column, and the satirical Friday column "Celeb ...
,
Siri Hustvedt
Paul Auster
Paul Benjamin Auster (born February 3, 1947) is an American writer and film director. His notable works include ''The New York Trilogy'' (1987), ''Moon Palace'' (1989), ''The Music of Chance'' (1990), ''The Book of Illusions'' (2002), ''The Broo ...
, and
Alaa Al Aswany
Alaa Al Aswany ( ar, علاء الأسواني, ; born 26 May 1957) is an Egyptian writer, novelist, and a founding member of the political movement Kefaya.
Early life and career
Al Aswany was born on 26 May 1957 in Cairo. His mother, Zainab ...
.
Exhibitions
The Black Diamond has two main exhibition areas. The larger of the two is the Peristyle (Danish: Søjlehallen) which covers 600 square metres and is located at level K. It hosts a variety of cultural and historical exhibitions, including those held by the National Museum of Photography. The other, the Montana Hall, was created in 2009 and serves as the treasury of the library. It is here that the rarest pieces from the national heritage are exhibited.
One of the most ambition exhibitions, at the library was
Stranger Then Kindness created in cooperation between
Nick Cave
Nicholas Edward Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian singer, songwriter, poet, lyricist, author, screenwriter, composer and occasional actor. Known for his baritone voice and for fronting the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Ca ...
and local curator Christina Back.
Artwork
Kirkeby fresco
The Danish artist
Per Kirkeby
Per Kirkeby (1 September 1938 – 9 May 2018) was a Danish painter, poet, film maker and sculptor.
Biography
By the time Kirkeby completed a masters degree in arctic geology at the University of Copenhagen in 1964, he was already part of the ...
has created a 210 square metre titleless fresco at the entrance to the lending section and reading rooms at level C. The painting is one of the largest ceiling decorations in the Nordic countries and it took Per Kirkeby more than a year to complete. Executed in oils, the colourful and organic painting creates a striking contrast to the minimalist surroundings and the adjacent cleavage in glass and steel.
''Katalog'' sound ornament – Music at One
''Katalog'' (English: Catalogue) is a music piece composed specially for the Black Diamond by Danish composer
Fuzzy
Fuzzy or Fuzzies may refer to:
Music
* Fuzzy (band), a 1990s Boston indie pop band
* Fuzzy (composer) (born 1939), Danish composer Jens Vilhelm Pedersen
* ''Fuzzy'' (album), 1993 debut album by the Los Angeles rock group Grant Lee Buffalo
* "Fuz ...
as a new artistic decoration. It consists of an
electroacoustic composition, around three minutes long, for every week of the year. Every day at 1 pm the composition is broadcast in the atrium via a permanent installation based on a computerized 12-channel loudspeaker system, in which every loudspeaker can be programmed individually. Four loudspeakers are installed in the ceiling of each of the three balcony levels.
With each of the 52 compositions inspired by one of the library's treasures, either a manuscript, a photo, a book, or a piece of music, it is intended as a tribute to and promotion of the library's collections and at the same time as an opportunity for the users to look up from their books and take a break.
See also
*
Architecture of Denmark
Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...
*
List of concert halls in Copenhagen
References
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Black Diamond (Library)
Library buildings completed in 1999
Libraries in Copenhagen
Concert halls in Copenhagen
Schmidt Hammer Lassen buildings
Music venues completed in 1999
1999 establishments in Denmark