History tell us Alexandria in Egypt once had the largest library in the world, which was tragically burned to the ground. In its place today, stands the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, a majestic structure designed by the Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta. The Oslo Opera House (photo) which won the European Union award for contemporary architecture in 2009 was also designed by Snøhetta. Its sloping roof slides into the water's edge, and visitors can walk freely over the building and the roof. Snohetta has been selected as the chief designer to transform New York’s Time Square to improve “the pedestrian experience in the plazas as well as the infrastructure for the various events held in Times Square throughout the year.”
The firm’s philosophy “Architecture cannot be contained by rules of order. Instead it must accommodate the restless mind of human society. It must accept associations developed by larger number of characters beyond the discipline of the architect.”
FastCompany named it one of its 50 most innovative companies this year and wrote its designs “consider a structure's social experience -- how the user enters, passes through, and lives in a building -- to be as important as its form.”
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