| Vennesla Library and Culture House | |
| Native Name: | Vennesla bibliotek |
| Native Name Lang: | Norwegian |
| Image Alt: | Interior in Vennesla Library |
| Altitude: | 480NaN0 |
| Building Type: | Library |
| Cost: | 80 million NOK |
| Owner: | Vennesla Municipality |
| Location Town: | Vennesla |
| Location Country: | Norway |
| Coordinates: | 58.2703°N 7.9703°W |
| Start Date: | 2010 |
| Opened Date: | 2011 |
| Floor Count: | 2 |
| Floor Area: | 1900m2[1] |
| Architecture Firm: | Helen & Hard |
| Awards: | Statens byggeskikkpris, 2012 |
The Vennesla Library and Culture House (Norwegian: Vennesla bibliotek og kulturhus) is a public library serving the inhabitants of Vennesla Municipality in Agder, Norway. The new library building completed in 2011 has won several architecture prizes and has been praised both within Norway[2] and abroad.[3]
The Municipality of Vennesla decided in 2005 to relocate the library to the city centre, linking together an existing community house and learning centre into a cultural centre. A café, open meeting places and a small scene were incorporated into the plan of the new building, making it a combined library and house of culture. With the new building, the municipality sought both to establish a public meeting place and to increase the quality of architecture in the urban area of Vennesla. An architectural design competition was initiated in 2008; it was won by the firm Helen & Hard from Stavanger and the new building was ready in 2011.
The main building material is wood, and the building is dominated by the 27 glue-laminated timber arcs that support the roof and give associations to ribs of a whale skeleton. The building has attracted much interest and won several prizes, among them Statens byggeskikkpris for 2012 (the Norwegian state prize for good buildings).[4] The building has, however, also received criticism for lacking functionality for its main purpose, namely being a library building. The author of an opinion piece in the Norwegian weekly Morgenbladet maintained that the library building was beautiful, yet inconvenient for normal library use.[5]