A magic hat for all New Yorkers – Library of the 21st century

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL) is New York’s new central library. The 16,722 square meter building was realized by the Dutch architecture firm Mecanoo in collaboration with Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners from New York. The steel frames of the existing 1914 building were reused in the shell of the spectacular revitalization, which will make the building a new landmark on Fifth Avenue.

The SNFL is a new generation library. It is aimed at all New Yorkers and has special facilities for young users, adult education and businesses. Opposite the SNFL is the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (SASB). Opened in 1911, the building is now considered the mother ship of the New York Public Library and welcomes over 1.7 million visitors a year. The concept of Mecanoo and Beyer Blinder Belle was to utilize synergies between SASB and SNFL and bring them together as the Midtown Campus of the New York Public Library.

With an annual circulation of two million books, the SNFL presents the architects with a major challenge in terms of access, organization and storage. The design offers more space, more books, more seats and lower shelves. At the heart of the SNFL is the Long Room – a new space that unmistakably transports the idea of a library into the existing building, which was designed as a department store. A hollow space, 9 meters wide and 26 meters high, was cut into the 1914 steel frame, which rises from the second floor up to a lively ceiling artwork by Hayal Pozanti.

On the first floor of SNFL, there is still no sign of this dramatic atrium. The floor plan is arranged around a boulevard that leads under a floating canopy of wooden beams from the entrance on Fifth Avenue to the reception desks. Stairs and elevators are located to the right of the entrance, while a gallery to the left provides a view of the basement, which houses a children’s library and a youth center. Among other things, the Teen Center is equipped with learning and media rooms, which are decorated with eye-catching murals by artist Melinda Beck. A special highlight: visitors can watch the SNFL book sorting machine in action through an interior window in the basement.

On the second floor, the Long Room separates three floors of flexible reading areas with daylight on one side from five levels of books on the other. In this way, the architects provide a creative and efficient response to the desire for more space in the public reading room and the need for a searchable collection. Through the windows of the SNFL facing 40th Street, passers-by can see the stacks of books, like a wall of spines inviting them to browse the library.

Slightly inclined ramps connect the various book levels with the reading areas, which extend from the atrium to the Fifth Avenue façade. The bespoke oak-topped reading tables, up to 20 meters long, are largely supported by the building’s original steel frames. These tables pay homage to the impressively long tables in the Rose Main Reading Room at SASB and are one of the many features that reflect the harmony between the two buildings: From the use of classical elements; the natural stone, terrazzo and oak materials, to the ceiling artwork in the Long Room that echoes the neoclassical paintings on the ceilings of SASB – there is a lot of 1911 in the 21st century.

Above the Long Room and its reading areas, on the fourth and fifth floors, are the Business Center and the facilities of the Pasculano Learning Center. Elevators and stairs lead up to the seventh floor, which was built on the roof height of the existing building. A sloping wooden slatted ceiling covers a flexible conference and event center for 268 people, which is surrounded by an L-shaped roof terrace with a roof garden and café. Overlooking the rooftops of 40th Street and Fifth Avenue, this terrace offers breathtaking views of Midtown and the surrounding skyscrapers and is also Manhattan’s only free rooftop terrace open to the public.

An impressive new roof crowns the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library. It is 56 meters above street level and houses the building’s technical equipment. Its angled roof slopes and patinated copper-colored aluminum finish are inspired by Manhattan’s copper-clad Beaux Art mansard roofs, two examples of which, dating back to 1904, are visible from the terrace. The distinctive shape of the roof gives the SNFL its nickname: “A wizard’s hat for all New Yorkers”.

Another highlight on Fifth Avenue: New York’s legendary flagship store Tiffany & Co. celebrated its reopening in April 2023.