A ￡14 million library designed by Piers Gough at CZWG has opened in the London Borough of Southwark.
 

Canada Water library is contained within an inverted pyramid shape, clad in light bronze aluminium with sequined perforations.
 

The building, dubbed a “super-library” by the council, includes a 150-seat theatre, a café, three rooms for evening classes and 79 internet terminals, as well as space for around 40,000 books.
 

Gough said: “The idea of a free-standing object in space is quite appropriate for a library, since it is a portal to the discovery of other worlds. The building celebrates its brilliant location on a new public square, next to a bus and tube station and overlooking Canada Water basin. The library is an indoor public space open to everyone, where you find wonderful things you weren’t necessarily looking for. It is a futuristic Pandora’s box of possibilities.”
 

The library has been under construction for more than two years. Veronica Ward, cabinet member for culture at Southwark Council, said: “It’s an incredible, breath-taking use of space, both inside and out, and has all that you could need under one roof.”