Snøhetta returns to Alexandria for anniversary lecture
In connection with Bibliotheca Alexandrina's 20th-anniversary celebrations, Snøhetta returned to Egypt to share the story behind the project from competition to completion.
On the 10th of October 2023, members from Snøhetta's original team, including architects Kjetil Trædal Thorsen, Craig Dykers, Elaine Molinar, and Robert Greenwood, artist Jorunn Sannes, and landscape architect Kari Stensrød, took part in a ceremony and lecture entitled Bibliotheca Alexandrina: The Revival of a Legend at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina Conference Center.
The events were organized by the Alexandria and Mediterranean Research Center, Academic Research Sector, and the Norwegian Embassy in Cairo, in collaboration with Snøhetta.
Snøhetta's first defining project
Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt, is one of Snøhetta's most impactful and defining projects, won by a young, then-unknown architecture and landscape collective in 1989. Conceived as a revival of the ancient library in the city founded by Alexander the Great some 2300 years ago and lost to civilization centuries later, the new library officially opened in 2002 and is now a contemporary center for learning and culture for students, researchers, and the public.