Schmidt Hammer Lassen is an international architecture firm founded in Aarhus, Denmark, in 1986 by Morten Schmidt, Bjarne Hammer and John F. Lassen. It has offices in Copenhagen, Aarhus and Shanghai, and in 2018 became part of the global firm Perkins and Will. Libraries are at the heart of its work, from Copenhagen and Aarhus to Ningbo and Shanghai, along with museums and the permanent premises of the International Criminal Court in The Hague (2015).
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The firm's first major project was Katuaq, the culture centre in Nuuk, Greenland (1997), raised above the ground and clad inside and out in golden larch behind a screen inspired by the northern lights. It then won the international competition for the extension of the Royal Danish Library on Copenhagen's harbourfront, the Black Diamond (1999), named for its polished black granite and irregular angles. ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum (2004) later gained Olafur Eliasson's circular skywalk, Your rainbow panorama. Dokk1 in Aarhus (2015), which combines a library and other civic uses under one roof, was named Public Library of the Year in 2016, and the firm also designed Tūranga (Christchurch Central Library) (2018) in New Zealand.
