Utopia - Library and Academy for Performing Arts

As a complex, it houses two contrasting programmes: a library for quiet contemplation and a performing arts academy. The simple brief for Utopia was to provide a home for information, knowledge, culture and leisure that feels connected to the city and its residents. This was achieved by creating connective spaces, such as large window openings sliced out of the brickwork, providing views onto the street and adjacent squares. The internal windows offer unobstructed views through the building, showcasing the bookshelves and the rehearsal spaces for the various performing arts.

The open interior landscape of the building stretches from floor to ceiling. The expansive reading hall of the library rises up at the core of the ensemble with staircases at its peripheries that weave between levels and give access to the academy housed on the first two floors. Each floor features bookshelves and reading tables looking onto the open interior space and towards the brick façade of the pre-existing building. Aesthetically, the complex is not ornamental, but it is itself an ornament for the city.