The Vennesla Library and Culture House ( no, Vennesla bibliotek og kulturhus) is a

public library A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is usually funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are also Civil service, civil servants. There are ...

serving the inhabitants of

Vennesla Municipality Vennesla is a municipality in Agder county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Sørlandet. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Vennesla. Other villages in Vennesla include Grovane, Hægeland, Hom ...

in Agder,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

. The new library building completed in 2011 has won several architecture prizes and has been praised both within Norway and abroad. Vennesla Kulturhus fasade

The Municipality of Vennesla decided in 2005 to relocate the library to the city centre, linking together an existing community house and learning centre into a cultural centre. A café, open meeting places and a small scene were incorporated into the plan of the new building, making it a combined library and house of culture. With the new building, the municipality sought both to establish a public meeting place and to increase the quality of architecture in the urban area of Vennesla. An architectural design competition was initiated in 2008; it was won by the firm Helen & Hard from

Stavanger Stavanger (, , American English, US usually , ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Norway. It is the fourth largest city and third largest metropolitan area in Norway (through conurbation with neighboring Sandnes) and the a ...

and the new building was ready in 2011. The main building material is wood, and the building is dominated by the 27

glue-laminated timber Glued laminated timber, commonly referred to as glulam, is a type of structural engineered wood product constituted by layers of dimensional lumber bonded together with durable, moisture-resistant structural adhesives so that all of the grain run ...

arcs that support the roof and give associations to

rib In vertebrate anatomy, ribs ( la, costae) are the long curved bones which form the rib cage, part of the axial skeleton. In most tetrapods, ribs surround the chest, enabling the lungs to expand and thus facilitate breathing by expanding the ches ...

s of a whale skeleton. The building has attracted much interest and won several prizes, among them Statens byggeskikkpris for 2012 (the Norwegian state prize for good buildings). The building has, however, also received criticism for lacking functionality for its main purpose, namely being a library building. The author of an opinion piece in the Norwegian weekly '' Morgenbladet'' maintained that the library building was beautiful, yet inconvenient for normal library use."Vinneren av Statens Byggeskikkpris 2012 ble biblioteket i Vennesla. Og det er et fint hus. Men er det et godt bibliotek? Alle hyllene og benkene og inventaret sitter fast i selve konstruksjonen. En bygning der anvendbarheten synes å være helt sekundær og hvor stilen hinter mer mot smykkedesign enn om tilpasning til kunnskapservervelse. Er det virkelig en estetikk i seg selv som fremholdes som vår tids ypperste arkitektur?", from «Arkitekten og selvtekten», (translation:The winner of the Norwegian state prize for good building 2012 was the library in Vennesla. And it is a nice house. But is it a good library? All the shelves, benches and the rest of the inventory is a part of the construction. A building where its usability seems to be of second importance and where its style hint more towards jewelry design than adapting to acquiring knowledge. Is it really aesthetics in itself that is judged to be the greatest architecture of our time?") from article in the Norwegian newspaper Morgenbladet, page 29, 27 July - 2 August 2012

References

External links

Official website, Kulturhuset

"Vennesla Library and Culture House / Helen & Hard"
from archdaily.com
"Vennesla Library and Cultural Centre by Helen & Hard"
from the website wallpaper.com {{Authority control Vennesla Libraries in Norway Culture in Agder Library buildings completed in 2011