Aarhus Mediascape – even more interesting than its architecture are the library concepts behind it
by Hans Pul
Libraries have been considered as central places of public life. They are filled with people of all ages and with all sorts of backgrounds. And with books, of course. In the last decade or so, public libraries have seen some sort of revival, partly in reaction to the claim that libraries had become irrelevant in the digital age. Cities around the world have built new public libraries on prominent locations. This theme was touched upon on the City of Flows conference in Potsdam, Germany, which I recently visited. I was inspired by a presentation by Knud Schulz, who has worked in the public library of Aarhus, Denmark, for over 20 years.
One can easily criticize cities for focussing on landmarks as boosterism of place branding and urban development. The name of the new Aarhus library (“Urban Mediascape”) can make one sceptical. However, there’s some real good content behind the fancy name and the library’s landmark characteristics, as I’ll sketch in this post.
