a man riding a skateboard down the side of a wooden wall

A bidding to build the library set out in 2012 was won by the Finnish architectural firm ALA Architects and structural design by Ramboll Finland. ALA Architects won the commission over 543 other competitors. The library was planned to be a three story building and to include a sauna and a ground floor movie theatre. In January 2015, the Helsinki City Council voted 75–8 to launch the building project. The estimated costs of the new library were 98 million euros, of which the state agreed to pay 30 million in connection with the centenary of Finland's independence in 2017.