Beijing City Library — Tongzhou District, Beijing, China
The institution’s formal Chinese name is 北京城市图书馆, rendered by the operator and LOPO as Beijing City Library. Design architect Snøhetta publishes the project as Beijing Library. Both names refer here to the public library in the northwest part of City Green Heart Forest Park in Beijing’s Tongzhou sub-center.
Project identity, location and team
Snøhetta’s project record places the 75,000 m² library in Beijing’s Tongzhou sub-center, gives a 2018–2023 project period and identifies the Beijing Municipal Commission of Planning and Natural Resources as client. It states that Snøhetta won the 2018 international competition and completed the project with local partner ECADI. It also lists Eckersley O’Callaghan, Meinhardt and China Railway Construction Engineering Group as collaborators.
Beijing government construction reporting locates the project more precisely in the northwest part of City Green Heart Forest Park and identifies China Railway Construction Engineering Group as the builder. LOPO’s supplier page groups Eckersley O’Callaghan and Meinhardt under curtain-wall and building-maintenance-unit engineering, but does not divide the individual packages between them. This page therefore does not invent separate scopes.
Role boundary: Snøhetta’s collaborator list and the government contractor record support the team above. LOPO’s own case record supports a terracotta-product attribution; it does not establish that LOPO designed the architecture, engineered the curtain wall, installed the facade or acted as main contractor.
Completion and public opening
| Date | Verified record | Boundary |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Snøhetta won the project through an international competition. | Commission milestone, not completion. |
| January 2023 | Beijing government reporting said the external facade had substantially appeared while interior fit-out and building services continued. | Facade progress, not public opening. |
| 2018–2023 | Snøhetta records the project as completed within this period. | No day-level completion date is stated. |
| 27 December 2023 | Beijing’s official opening notice records the public opening of 北京城市图书馆. | Use as the operating/opening date. |
What the LOPO material record confirms
LOPO’s 15 October 2024 project record identifies natural-fired architectural terracotta in brick-red and sandy beige, a nominal thickness of 30 mm and a supplier-published area of 11,783.31 m². It lists panel face heights of 420 mm, 799 mm and 900 mm. According to that supplier account, the pieces were cut and assembled into triangular screen columns in a staggered arrangement around the glass curtain wall and around the north and south entrances.
The same LOPO record says opening windowpanes occur within parts of the terracotta wall and that some ducts and cables are placed within the triangular assemblies. Those are project-configuration statements from the material supplier. They do not prove a reduction in mechanical ventilation, an energy saving, a thermal value or a universal detail for other buildings.
Specification boundary: no reviewed source provides a panel width or length schedule, unit count, colour code, surface code, fixing layout, subframe specification, test standard, fire classification, thermal result, warranty or maintenance plan. The three face heights and 30 mm thickness must not be converted into a complete procurement specification.
Keep every project number in its own scope
| Published figure | What it describes | What it must not become |
|---|---|---|
| 75,000 m² | Whole-building size reported by Snøhetta and Beijing authorities. | Not terracotta or total facade area. |
| 25,000 m² | Open reading environment reported in the project narrative. | Not an envelope quantity. |
| 11,783.31 m² | LOPO’s supplier-published terracotta-product area. | Not gross floor area or a unit count. |
| 276 | Large glass facade panels in Beijing government reporting. | Not terracotta panels. |
| 144 | Ginkgo-tree-like spatial and support elements in the official opening account. | Not terracotta screen columns. |
| 8 million / 7.15 million | Collection and automated-storage capacities in the official opening notice. | Not construction or material quantities. |
The building holds a whole-project China Three Star Green Building Evaluation Label, and the project has received design and library awards. Those recognitions concern the building, programme and project team as published; they are not a test result for one facade material and are not presented as a LOPO product award.
Claims this record does not make
The earlier page described the terracotta as weather-resistant, thermally insulating, self-cleaning and eco-friendly, and connected it to reduced heat, glare, energy use, mechanical ventilation and maintenance. No project-specific test report, energy model, environmental declaration, cleaning study or maintenance record was found for those statements. They have therefore been removed rather than generalized from the building’s overall sustainability strategy.
- Use the Terracotta Rainscreen page for current system context, not this project photo record.
- Browse other documented work in the Terracotta Cladding Projects archive.
Request project-specific facade evidence
For a new project, send elevations, required module and profile, finish references, performance criteria, preliminary quantities, programme and delivery location. LOPO can then respond with project-specific samples, drawings and documentation rather than treating this completed library as a universal specification.