A closer look at Swedish Grace interior by Gunnar Asplund

Stockholm Public Library – Stadsbibilioteket – is one of the city’s most recognisable buildings. As such it is truly an architectural landmark, a place known not only by the city’s inhabitants but also one of the main architectural tourist attractions for visitors from within and outside Sweden. Gunnar Asplund completed the construction in around 1928, the era of Swedish Grace and the time when the so called Nordic Classicism movement swept across the Scandinavian countries. The library represents the neoclassical architecture based on the geometric shapes of the ancient classical styles and combines elements of more modern interior design by that time’s most prominent craftsmen and artists. The open access to the library books was new at the time. The rotunda shape of the library provides the visitors with a direct access to the books in any given section and floor. The library in total accommodate about 40,000 books, including these found in additional rooms found beyond the rotunda’s main galleries. The book galleries are built to resemble amphitheatres, with a stair-like structure in relation to each other. Veneered wood materials are the foundation for the interior design, with many parts accentuated with rounded vault shape, resembling the pattern of small colonnettes.