The Viipuri Municipal Library, masterpiece of the library-architecture and a key work of Alvar Aalto was built in 1934-1935.
The completed library building is based on the Classicist winning proposition by Alvar Aalto in the 1927 design competition, for a site in Torkkelinpuisto park. The second (1928) and third (1929, alterations until 1932) design stage introduced Functionalist features like strip windows and the stairway glass wall. The Classicist features were drastically reduced, although still present.

The building is massed as two distinct and differing volumes: the long auditorium wing which houses the main entrance, the auditorium and offices on the north side of the building, and the main library portion as a cubic mass that houses the main library, reading room, children's library and newspaper reading room (the last two with separate entrances from the south side and the south-eastern end, respectively). The library book storage is located in the basement under the auditorium wing and partly under the library.
The auditorium wing has large windows on both floors, whereas the function of the library portion dictated the solid walls used in the upper floors. The newspaper reading room and children's library in the basement floor had large windows set above the bookshelves along the wall.
Auditorium wing structures are of concrete and steel and brickwork. The roof of auditorium is supported by steel columns. The library walls are of solid brickwork, 75 cm in thickness. The concrete slab ceiling spanning 18 meters is supported by reinforced concrete beams. 57 round skylights on the ceiling of the library hall were designed to provide indirect lighting, as were the artificial lighting fixtures. The ceilings in the library portion and hall also incorporated the heating pipes for the innovative ceiling radiator heating.

In the Soviet epoch Aalto's library, although it had endured the war without significant damages, finally teetered on the brink of disaster due to the incorrect reparations and the unsufficient care. Since 1990 joint Finnish-Russian efforts are made in order to get the internationally remarkable architectural monument restored.