Turkish delight: Pop-up library has a warm feeling

The client, the Art Today Association, needed a temporary space for its growing archive of books on contemporary art. But the premises were anything but temporary. The baths were originally a Roman structure and had been in continuous operation for centuries, until the 1990s.

The design for the library reflected this tension. The designers said their goal was to find ‘a contrast between the shabby layers of plaster accumulated over the years on the walls and ceiling, the cold brick and the stone walls’ and the ‘warmth, clarity and coziness’ of natural wood.

The result was a simple design that was ideal for quiet reading and contemplation, contemporary but far from the everyday.

Read our New Sublimity macrotrend for more on sublime spaces.