Mayor says Helsinki's new Central Library is to be located in Töölönlahti Bay area

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Helsinki Mayor Jussi Pajunen (National Coalition Party) has proposed that the planned new Central Library should be located on the Töölönlahti Bay area.
      This is the part of Helsinki currently housing such buildings as Finlandia Hall and the National Opera, and where the new Music Centre is to go up.
     
Because Helsinki’s plot of land on the Bay area is not large enough for the planned library, which is to be larger even than Finlandia Hall, the capital will have to persuade the state to hand over the state-owned plot across the street to be combined with the city’s land. The decision would have to be made in Parliament.
      ”The new library could become the living room of the entire country”, noted Pajunen.
      ”The planned library will have to be turned into a national and regional project, in which the state and all municipalities in the Greater Helsinki area will take part”, he added.
      In Pajunen’s view, when the completion of the new Central Library is scheduled for 2017, it could be made a symbol of Finland’s 100 years of independence.
     
”The best library in the world would combine the Finnish high-grade education system and top competence in technology”, explains the Mayor, referring to Finland’s success in the OECD's Pisa tests.
      This is why the Töölönlahti Bay area is practically the one and only place for Helsinki’s new Central Library, Pajunen believes.
      The City of Helsinki suggests that the state would account for half of the estimated costs of EUR 100 million, while the city would provide EUR 25 million, and the other municipalities together would cover the remaining EUR 25 million.
     
The leadership of Helsinki have already presented the matter to Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen (Centre) and the leaders of the neighbouring cities.
      ”None of them has rejected the idea. However, this is too early for them to give any promises as yet”, Pajunen reported.
      Helsinki’s leading civil servants will handle the project and its construction schedule next week.
      The matter is rather urgent, as the state has already planned to sell its plot in the Töölönlahti Bay area.
      Mikko Leisti, the project manager of the Helsinki Central Library preplanning phase, has already sketched an entirely new kind of library which would be accessible round the clock.
      The aim is to build a library which all Finns would be able to use - physically on the spot or virtually.
     
”The aim of the new Central Library is to get people to have access to information, skills, and stories in a new way, thus broadening their own views”, Leisti notes.
      According to Leisti’s calculations, the annual number of visitors would be 1.5 million, while some 5,000 people would spend time in the library every day.
      ”Instead of being just a storeroom for books, the library with its collections would reflect dynamic, up-to-date reality. It could have both hardcover and electronic alternatives. Even E-books are coming, even though not as fast as was expected”, Leisti explains.
      The new Central Library would also serve as a venue for events and as a meeting place. In addition to workstations, the library would accommodate exhibition premises, a place for hobby crafts, a movie theatre, studios, and an auditorium.
     
The architects will be chosen in 2009, and the plans are scheduled to be completed in 2010. The final decision on the implementation of the project will also be made in 2010. The construction work will be launched in 2011-2012. The new Central Library will be completed in 2016-2017.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Helsinki´s new Central Library to be given the go-ahead (14.5.2007)

Helsingin Sanomat