The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL) is a new-generation library for all New Yorkers, with special facilities for young users, adult learning, and business. Since 1982, SNFL has been housed in a former department store with a landmark 1914 façade. It offers the perfect contemporary complement to The New York Public Library’s world-famous Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (SASB), located across Fifth Avenue from SNFL. SASB, opened in 1911, was designed by architects Carrère & Hastings in a glorious Beaux-Arts style and is the mothership of NYPL’s reference collections. The project forms part of the New York Public Library’s Midtown Campus transformation. Dovetail Design Strategists led the design team selection process for the wider campus redevelopment, with founder and president Susanna Sirefman serving as client-side design strategist.
New features at SNFL reflect this harmony between the buildings. Long tables recall the impressive scale of those in SASB’s Rose Main Reading Room, while the ceiling artwork in the Long Room echoes the neo-classical paintings set within SASB. The use of timeless materials, including natural stone, terrazzo and oak, further reinforces the dialogue between the two libraries while establishing a contemporary identity for SNFL.
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library welcomes around 1.7 million visitors each year and circulates approximately two million items annually. This scale generated challenges in access, organisation and storage. The design solution provides more space, more books, more seats and lower shelving, creating a library that is easier to navigate while offering a more open and welcoming environment.
At the heart of the library is the Long Room, a dramatic new space that introduces the idea of a grand reading room into the existing structure. This linear atrium separates three floors of flexible, naturally daylit reading areas on one side from five levels of book stacks on the other, balancing the need for a browsable collection with the desire for generous public reading spaces. Above the Long Room, the fourth and fifth floors accommodate the Business Center and the Pasculano Learning Center.
Elevators and stairs continue to the sixth floor, constructed at the level of the original roof. This new floor features pitched timber slat ceilings and houses a flexible conference and event centre for up to 268 people. An L-shaped roof terrace extends above the 40th Street and Fifth Avenue façades, incorporating a roof garden and an adjacent indoor café. As Manhattan’s only free, publicly accessible rooftop terrace, it offers exceptional views across the city.
Above the sixth floor, a dramatic new roof rises to conceal the building’s mechanical equipment, reaching 56 metres (184 feet) above street level. Its angled form and patinated copper-coloured surface draw inspiration from Manhattan’s Beaux-Arts copper-clad mansard roofs, while also referencing the tapering silhouettes of the city’s Art Deco skyscrapers and the faceted forms of more contemporary towers. The result is a distinctive addition to the New York skyline that connects the library’s historic setting with its future.