Stockholm Public Library
Gunnar Asplund · Stockholm, Sweden · 1928
Gunnar Asplund’s Stockholm Public Library is a masterpiece of Nordic Classicism and a pivotal work in the transition toward Swedish modernism. Opened in 1928, the building is organized around a monumental cylindrical reading room reached through a carefully staged sequence from street to interior. Classical ideas of order and procession are simplified into abstract geometric masses and restrained surfaces. The luminous central rotunda, ringed by books, remains one of the most memorable library interiors of the twentieth century and a key reference in Scandinavian civic architecture.