The exhibition is on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the National Library and includes photos from the opening of the National Library on December 1, 1994.
The lead-up to the construction of the National Library was quite a long one. In 1956, Gylfi Þ. Gíslason, then Minister of Education, proposed the merger of the National Library of Iceland and the University Library and later the construction of a national library that would house both collections. Next, the National Festival Committee announced in 1968 that the National Library building would be the main monument on the 1100th anniversary of the settlement of Iceland in 1974, a gift that the nation gave itself. In 1972, the architects Manfreð Vilhjálmsson and Þorvaldur S. Þorvaldsson were commissioned to design the National Library. Groundbreaking for the building was held in 1978. Þorvaldur S. Þorvaldsson stopped working on the design of the building in 1984 when he took over as City Planner, but Manfreð Vilhjálmsson completed the work together with staff at his design studio.
The building was under construction for sixteen years. Ólafur G. Einarsson was Minister of Education in 1994 when the National Library was inaugurated and had fought hard to maintain a source of income for the building. Hagtak completed the largest phase of the building in recent years. A total of 12 parties were involved in the design of the building.
The opening ceremony was attended by hundreds of people, including Mrs. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, President of Iceland, who officially opened the museum, the Speaker of the Althing, ministers, the President of the Supreme Court, the Bishop of Iceland and the Mayor of Reykjavík, as well as Nordic guests, the national librarians of Denmark, Finland, the Faroe Islands, Norway and Sweden, the board of NORDINFO, and ambassadors from numerous foreign countries.
The opening is discussed in the first issue of Literacy Education .
The exhibition runs until January 25, 2015.