Essen Central Library / MVRDV + includi

Location: Essen, Germany

Design Team: MVRDV, includi, Meyer Architekten

Area: 10,000 m²

Year: 2026

Photography: Daria Scagliola, Jannes Linders

Design Features: Essen Central Library occupies the former Boeckerhaus department store on Kennedyplatz in central Essen. MVRDV and third-place specialist includi designed the interior in collaboration with Meyer Architekten, transforming the building into a 10,000 m², six-storey civic interior. The property had also housed the Mayersche bookshop, and the new library extends this association with books while shifting emphasis toward meeting, learning, play and shared use.

A series of workshops with library staff informed the concept, which draws on Ray Oldenburg's theory of the third place: a social setting beyond home and work or school. A ground-floor café invites people inside, the former escalator zone becomes a central atrium connecting the floors, and blue information and orientation points make movement through the large interior immediately legible.

Bookshelves become spatial building blocks rather than perimeter storage. Red media villages give each floor a distinct identity: circular shelving encloses soft play for children on the first floor, a cross-shaped cluster supports gaming on the second, and smaller rooms for hobbies and making appear on the third. Colours are more energetic on the lower floors and calmer above, following the shift from communal activity to study and contemplation.

The second organising system is an activated interior façade. A continuous timber ribbon incorporates seating, lounging, desks, play areas, viewing points and planting at different heights. It offers many ways to stay without demanding a single purpose and makes reading, conversation, work and rest visible behind the city-facing windows. The perimeter becomes the library's most continuous public room.

The programme ranges from family reading, fiction, international literature, audiobooks and film to makerspaces, music rehearsal, 3D printing, virtual reality and robotics. Quiet study areas sit alongside rooms for group work and hands-on workshops. At the top, the recently added Stadt Raum provides a venue for events with panoramic views across Essen.

By reusing a familiar commercial structure in the city centre, the project places public culture within an existing urban frame. Wide passages, ramps, lifts and identifiable service points support access, while warm timber, natural colours and exposed construction keep the large interior open without becoming institutional. Its sense of refinement comes from precise public generosity: different people can find their own seat, activity level and duration of stay.

Design Team: MVRDV was founded in Rotterdam in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries. The practice works across architecture and urbanism with a strong emphasis on research, density and shared public space. Partner Fokke Moerel led Essen Central Library with Jonathan Schuster, Egle Jacinaviciute, Basak Günalp, Anna Odulinska, Martyna Maciaszek, Fabian Koppers, Xiaoyi Qin, Aleksandra Domian, Giulia Cacciatori and Apsara Fury.

includi contributed its expertise in libraries and third-place design, while Meyer Architekten worked on the project locally with 2zu8 Architekten. IME coordinated the project, FC-Gruppe provided MEP engineering, and WISSBAU advised on building physics and acoustics. Together, the team translated staff workshops, media organisation, wayfinding, furniture and adaptive reuse into one public interior system grounded in everyday use.