Architecture and History of the Main Library

Architect Alvar Aalto designed the library building. It was completed in 1965. The building is 1600 m2 in area and the cubic capacity is 6700 m3.
Adult lending department, children's department, music department and workrooms are on the ground floor. Reference library, stacks, microfilm room, archives, the Seinäjoki collection and staff rooms are downstairs.
Seinäjoki Public Library got its first full-time library assistant in 1963. In 1968 it became a provincial library and now it is a central library for 18 municipalities.

Adult lending department

The floor plan of the library is like an opened book, which stands on a table and is looked at from above. Everything can be supervised from the back of the book, that is, from the information desk.
The structure of the roof is a great idea: the levels of the ceiling follow the levels of the floor.
The construction work of the building is brilliant, for example the roof. During the casting the boards were watered so they could be bowed into two directions. The surface is grainy because the boards are untreated. The ceiling has not been sandpapered, only painted.
Although the library was built in 1965, it already has some technical exclusivity. For example the lights can be put out concentratedly from the information desk.
Alvar Aalto made a little mistake while designing the library. He thought that the facade was towards south, not towards north as it is now. When he found out that it might be hot in the summer because of the big windows towards south he decided to put a latticework outside the windows. Now the light comes in indirectly and because of the broad white surfaces, it’s relatively light in the library also on cloudy days.
Aalto made another mistake with the roof. It curves down right from the ceiling at the back wall of the adult lending department. You can’t open the windows in the middle and that’s why it’s difficult to wash them.

Sivukas is the room on the right from the information. There used to be the reference library, which is now downstairs.

The structure at the children’s department is lower and the furniture is smaller.

There used to be art exhibitions in the room where the reference library is nowadays.

The music department is in its original place. Part of the material has been decentralized because of the lack of space.

The newspaper reading-room has been in a separate building since 1990. The address is Koulukatu 25.
The house was supposed to be build in Carelia, at Elisenvaara, but when the border between Finland and former Soviet Union was changed after the war in 1940s, it had to be removed.
The house was built in Seinäjoki in 1947 and the city of Seinäjoki has owned it since 1966.