About the library

The Royal Danish Academy Library is Denmark’s most comprehensive library for architecture, design, conservation and the performing arts. As a public research library, our library provides free access to most of our collections and facilities for the general public.

The Royal Danish Academy Library is part of The Royal Danish Academy - Architecture, Design, Conservation. The library supports education and research at the Royal Danish Academy.

Until the library's nameshift in 2020, the library was called KADK Library (derived from the Academy's Danish name Kunstakademiets Skoler for Arkitektur, Design og Konservering - KADK).
The KADK Library came into being in 2011 as the result of a merger of three creative schools’ libraries: the School of Architecture Library, the Design School Library and the School of Conservation Library.
In the same year, the joint library overtook the management of library services for the Danish National School of Performing Arts. The performing arts have thus joined the other three subject fields in the library's collections.

The Royal Danish Academy Library is housed in the former smithy on Holmen, where ships of the navy formerly were kept in repair. The building is characterised by a huge rider roof, which from the inside creates view to the sky and throws an exceptional light into the library hall. Specifically for this space Sophia Kalkau has created the artwork
‘Quadrature of the Moon’ hovering on the wall above eye level.

The smithy was built 1918-19 by the architect Olaf Schmidth and the engineers Christiani & Nielsen. 1998-99 the library of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture (KASB) moved into the building, which was restored and rebuilt by Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects. 2016-17 Rønnow Architects implemented a large roof restoration of the library.