Halifax Central Library

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The Halifax Central Library is a public library in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada on the corner of Spring Garden Road and Queen Street. It serves as the flagship library of the Halifax Public Libraries, replacing the Spring Garden Road Memorial Library.A new central library was discussed by library administrators for several decades and approved by the regional council in 2008. The architects, a joint venture between local firm Fowler Bauld and Mitchell and Schmidt Hammer Lassen of Denmark, were chosen in 2010 through an international design competition. Construction began later that year on a prominent downtown site that had been a parking lot for half a century.The new library opened in December 2014 and has become a highly popular gathering place. In addition to a book collection significantly larger than that of the former library, the new building houses a wide range of amenities including cafés, an auditorium, and community rooms. The striking architecture is characterised by the fifth floor's cantilever over the entrance plaza, a central atrium criss-crossed by staircases, and the building's transparency and relationship to the urban context.The library won a Lieutenant Governor’s Design Award in Architecture for 2014 and a Governor General's Medal in Architecture in 2016.HistoryPlanningThe Spring Garden Road main library, opened in 1951, had been considered inadequate by library administrators for several decades. The first report mentioning a replacement building was published in 1971. An expansion built in 1974 was quickly outgrown. A 1987 assessment noted that the spaces within were "self-contained and inflexible" and that "study space and comfortable reading areas are presently the focus of serious public complaint... services are cramped and over crowded."