Mac Rating: 5.00 | Votes: 1 | Date: 02/07/2026 23:44:00

A 1908 machine factory that later spent decades as a bus garage now houses one of Malmo's most unusual public rooms. Garaget on Lonngatan in Sofielund is a municipal library and open meeting place that deliberately offers more than book lending: the model was inspired by London's Idea Stores in Tower Hamlets, and the venue opened on 8 February 2008 as an experiment in what a neighbourhood library could be. The building works like an extra living room for the district. Alongside the library shelves there is an organic cafe, a stage for events, a creative workshop added in the 2012 renovation, and services that range from homework help and language cafes to tool lending - visitors can borrow a drill as easily as a novel, mend their jeans, use the computers, or read newspapers in a dozen languages from a comfortable sofa. A small meeting room seats two to six people and can be booked at the desk, by phone or by mail. Programming fills most evenings and weekends, and everything is free and open to all - readings, workshops, children's events and community arrangements, with locals able to book the stage for their own happenings. Hours run from late morning on weekdays, with a long Tuesday evening to 21:00 and Sunday afternoons; the closest bus stop is Malmo Sofielund. As Copenhagen and Malmo libraries go, few double as social infrastructure quite so openly - the point of Garaget is as much the meeting as the media. The name is literal: before the library moved in, the 1908 Thule machine-factory building had served as a bus garage, and the raw industrial volume still shapes the room. The project was developed through an unusually open dialogue process with local residents about what the district actually wanted from a public space, which is why the result feels closer to a community centre with books than a conventional branch library - and why it has been studied by library planners from well beyond Sweden.