LIBRARY, MUSEUM AND ART SCHOOL “EEMHUIS”, AMERSFOORT, THE NETHERLANDS

The Eemhuis combines a number of existing cultural institutes in the city of Amersfoort: the city library, the exposition center, the heritage archives and a school for dance, music and visual arts. The building is organized as a vertical stacking of these programs that enhances the continuity of the public domain into the building. At the ground floor, the public square becomes a covered plaza, which gradually forms a terraced library. On the top of the stairs the library spills into a vast open space overlooking the city. Above it hovers the archive volume that forms the ceiling of this space. The attic of the building houses the arts school. The three arts departments (theatre & dance, visual arts and music) are each expressed separately as cantilevered beams that crown the complex.