Helsinki Central Library Oodi
The world's best public library in 2019 has robots doing the shelving.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Helsinki offline.
ALA Architects beat 543 rivals to design this €98 million civic building, inaugurated the eve of Finland's Independence Day in 2018. IFLA named it the best public library in the world the following year. The third floor holds 17,200 sq m of book stacks; the lower floors are open space for meetings and events, with a cinema tucked inside.
What to look for
- Automated robots transporting books up to the third-floor stacks
- Kino Regina cinema, running archival film screenings curated by the National Audiovisual Institute (KAVI)
- The building's position flanked by Helsinki Music Centre and Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art
A short walk from Helsinki Central Station.
Helsinki Central Library Oodi is one of 22 sights worth the detour in Helsinki, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Helsinki pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Helsinki
- SuomenlinnaThe "Gibraltar of the North" surrendered to Russia in two months — then got renamed Finnish in 1918.
- Helsinki CathedralA green dome raised to honor a Russian tsar — now the defining silhouette of an independent Finland.
- Helsinki Olympic StadiumDesigned for a 1940 Olympics that World War II cancelled, this functionalist bowl waited twelve years to finally light the torch.
- AteneumIn 1903 this became the first museum in the world to hang a Van Gogh — and that painting is still here.
- Senate SquareOne architect arranged church, state, university, and trade around a single square — and a tsar's statue quietly became a protest site.
- Temppeliaukio Church (Rock Church)A Lutheran church excavated out of solid rock — no spire, no facade, just raw rock and a rim of sky.