The Library of Water (Vatnasafn): Roni Horn’s Glacier-Water Installation in Stykkishólmur

A former library, reimagined

The Library of Water, known in Icelandic as Vatnasafn, occupies a plain 1950s building on a rise above Stykkishólmur harbour, on the north coast of the Snæfellsnes peninsula. It was the town’s public library until American artist Roni Horn converted it into a permanent art installation, commissioned by the London-based arts organization Artangel and opened in 2007 with the Town of Stykkishólmur and Iceland’s Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. From the outside it still looks like a modest civic building; the view over Breiðafjörður’s islands from its front steps is worth the short climb on its own.

Water, Selected

Inside, the main room holds “Water, Selected”: 24 floor-to-ceiling glass columns, each filled with water originally collected as ice from a different Icelandic glacier and left to melt. Light passes through the columns and refracts across a rubber floor embossed with Icelandic and English words describing weather and moods, so the room’s appearance shifts with the sun and the visitor’s position among the columns. It is quiet and largely unstaffed by design — there are no wall texts explaining each glacier, just the columns themselves and the view of the harbour through the windows behind them.

Weather Reports You, and everyday use

A second, smaller strand of the project, “Weather Reports You,” gathers first-person accounts of weather from residents of Stykkishólmur and the wider Snæfellsnes peninsula, collected by Horn and published as a book when the installation opened. Beyond its role as an art space, the building is used year-round by the local community for meetings, yoga sessions, and other gatherings, which keeps it functioning as a genuine town space rather than a sealed-off exhibit.

• Getting there: in Stykkishólmur’s old town, an easy walk from the harbour and the town centre
• Duration: most visitors spend 20-30 minutes in the main room
• Access: open daily to visitors in summer; access is reduced or by appointment outside the summer season, so check ahead if visiting off-season
• What to bring: nothing special — it’s an easy, low-effort stop; a camera does little justice to the light effects, so allow time to just sit
• Timing tip: the columns catch changing light differently through the day, so a late-afternoon visit on a clear day is worth pairing with a walk up the adjacent viewpoint over the harbour

Where to Stay

The Stykkishólmur Inn sits in the walkable old town, about a five-minute walk from the Library of Water, so you can drop by in a quiet half-hour between other harbour-town errands rather than planning a special trip out. Book direct on Ourhotels.is for the best rate.

Photo: Christian Bickel via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 de.