Bismarck, North Dakota, USA
The Norwegian firm Snøhetta was unanimously selected as the design architect of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library slated for North Dakota.
The announcement was made after a months-long process that culminated in a design competition between Snøhetta and the Danish firm Henning Larsen Architects.
JLG Architects have been named the local architects and architects of record.
The library is meant to honor and recount the complex story of Theodore Roosevelt, the one-time governor of New York who became the 26th president of the United States.
North Dakota was selected as the site for the library because Roosevelt’s connection to the State.
Roosevelt came to Dakota in September 1883 to hunt buffalo, and left having invested $14,000 in cattle and a ranch. Just a few months later, on February 14, 1884, Theodore Roosevelt’s wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and mother, Mittie Roosevelt, died on the same day in the same house. T.R. was devastated, writing famously in his diary, “The light has gone out of my life.”
Snøhetta’s vernacular design is formulated from the President’s personal reflections on the landscape, his commitment to environmental stewardship, and the periods of quiet introspection and civic engagement that marked his life.
The design of the Library is more than a building; it is a journey through a preserved landscape of diverse habitats, punctuated with small pavilions providing spaces for reflection and activity.
The Library’s gently sloping roof looks to the northeast, gazing over the National Park, historical
settings in the Little Missouri River valley, and the Elkhorn Ranch far in the distance, further connecting the Library of tomorrow with its origins in the past.
It’s not the first time we’ve addressed such challenges of historical weight,” says Craig Dykers, a founding partner at Snøhetta.
“The Bibliotheca Alexandrina [in Egypt], though not dedicated to a single person, was the first time we had to discuss the myth of a space versus present context.”
“Likewise, the World Trade Center museum in New York was not dissimilar.”
“What we tried to do in those projects, as with this one, was find a universal language that doesn’t specifically represent a person, or place, or historical context. We felt that the scene of an ascension is one of those things that’s universal. As we see things rise in front of us, we are optimistic and inspired. That, for us, is where everything began with this library.”
Architects: Snøhetta
Architects of Record: JLG Architects
Client: Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library Foundation
