The “Library of the Future” in Bonn’s Viktoriakarree is conceived as a new forum for knowledge, culture and exchange. The design takes up the historic intersection between Franziskanerstraße, Rathausgasse and Belderberg and develops it into a coherent building volume that fits into the urban fabric in scale and typology.

Urbanistically, the new building follows the idea of a lively passage. Together with the campus building, it completes the block edge, defines the open space and opens to the neighbourhood through a green heart with cut-in courtyards. Ground floor, passage, cultural forum, gastronomy and library are understood as a permeable piece of city.

The existing building is treated as a resource. The façade designed by Gottfried Böhm is preserved as a defining example of post-war modernism and integrated into the new structure. Inside, an open, light-filled learning landscape is created, with a central information desk, sculptural staircase and flexible areas for working, reading and spending time. Timber-concrete hybrid construction, the reuse of building components, planted courtyards and roofs, and a resource-conscious energy concept combine the new building with a sustainable approach to the existing fabric.