National Library Board

The NLB of Singapore – the depository of the cultural heritage of the country – is a cultural institution that is , by definition both building and icon.. From times in memorial, libraries have evoked the human imagination and spirit. The history of architecture, focused on the building of temples, has also celebrated the buildings for knowledge and learning.

The Library is organized around two walls. A cylindrical wall surrounds three faces of the depository block, containing and enclosing. A second wall, concave and stretching outward, reveals the heart of the library to the surroundings. This freestanding wall is stabilized by a series of buttresses; its wings reach towards the city, and the openings formed between the two structures result in a dramatic transparency. The taut glass wall, which contains the entrance side of the depository block, now becomes part of the street architecture experienced from outside as well as from within the Great Urban Room. Galleries of readers cluster in both wall structures and are connected by bridges that embrace the Great Urban Room. The roof of the library is shaped into a great concave surface bending towards the sky like a great satellite dish facing upward – a symbolic receiver of data and information.