November 11, 2019
Ode to Oodi
Oodi Helsinki City Library is an unequivocal civic triumph, a temple to democracy when democracy itself is threatened.
Since it opened in December 2018, Oodi has welcomed over three million people. The 10,000 square metre building was a birthday present to the city to acknowledge 100 years of liberation from colonial rule, first Swedish, then Russian.
How apposite that Oodi looks out over a large civic square to Parliament House, an architectural relic from another era. This is the real ‘people’s palace’. This is where civic experimentation is taking place on an epic scale.
I spent five days at Oodi in September 2019.