Library Buildings around the World

A 2002 competition for the project was won by Wright & Wright, a practice that had established a strong track record in library
design, having completed both the Women’s Library at London Metropolitan University and the library at the Royal College of Art.
Funded in large part by a donation from John Taylor, a Corpus alumnus who made a fortune by inventing the cordless kettle, the
Taylor Library finally opened its doors in February.
Wright & Wright’s scheme involved gutting the existing building, removing the floor of the banking hall at street level, and dropping
the basement floor by a metre. Into the shell, the practice introduced a structure to support bookshelves and reading desks.
The new structure reads as a building within a building, and is held apart from the original walls by a full height-void. This move
has enabled the new floor plates to be positioned freely — there are now three where there were previously two — without crashing
into the inherited window openings. It also allows the intervention to follow an orthogonal plan without becoming embroiled in the
site’s wayward boundary line.
The choice of materials also proves a significant distinguishing factor. Where the internal faces of the original walls are plastered,
the bookshelves and reading desks of the new fabric are meticulously detailed in oak-veneered joinery. That same material is used
for the balustrades and as a lining for the steel structure, with the effect that the whole takes on a decidedly monumental presence.
For all the lightness of its construction, the new work feels every bit as substantial as the old.
Alongside the banking hall, Francis’ building incorporated a house for the bank manager, which has also been transformed to
provide a media studies centre at basement level and a designated law library above. The range of study spaces provided is therefore
really quite extensive, particularly when one compares the project with a traditional, single-volume collegiate library such as the
Parker or Wren’s wonderful library for Trinity. The more domestic arrangement established here cannot compete with the
grandeur of those examples, but one suspects it represents a model that many contemporary undergraduates would prefer.
Book shelves and reading desks are meticulously detailed in oak-veneered joinery.
Given the nature of the new use, the fact that the building presents a run of large windows to a busily trafficked junction was a
potential problem. However, the introduction of new glazing resolved the sound issues, while the void around the plan’s perimeter
deftly ensures that students can work without being observed by passers-by.
Initially, the architect envisaged the introduction of an additional window. This would have been located at the building’s corner,
taking the place of the now redundant front door. Instead, the college has decided to install a clock within the door surround,
requiring the introduction of a blank panel to transform the opening into an aedicule. I have not seen any design for the proposed
clock but it will have to be good if it is going to compensate for the loss of the fantastic view from the library back to the entrance of
King’s College.
The narrow yard via which the building is now accessed was conceived as a service space and offers neither the scale or formality of
the college’s two courts. In plan, it forms a parallelogram, which narrows towards the library at its north end. The practice’s work
also included an extensive remodelling of the other buildings on the yard to provide office space, washrooms, fellows’ sets, and a
basement-level junior common room. While modest in architectural scope, these changes have proved crucial in elevating the yard’s
status within the network of college spaces. With this ambition in mind, the idea of completely refacing the back of the Wilkins
terrace in stone was also mooted, but English Heritage preferred to see it retain its existing character. The only significant
adjustment that has been made, therefore, is the introduction of a series of stone door surrounds, which subtly aggrandise the
openings conceived by Wilkins as back doors, but which now serve as the front entrances.
The library registers in this rag-bag setting by way of an L-shaped extension that wraps around the yard’s north end. It
accommodates the sequence of entrance spaces and, just as crucially, allows the building to advertise the public role it now plays in
college life. That function is signalled by the choice of material — stone — and by the presence of a double-height window that
commands the principal elevation.
Approaching it, we discover that a deep recess has been cut into the adjacent facade — a low, wide space lined in stone with a
beautiful oak soffit above and an oak door at the back. Passing through, we enter a compact reception area before pinballing back to
the library.
Presented with the full-height void that extends up the back of the tall window, we are granted both a sense of spatial release and an
immediate understanding of the scope of the room that we have entered. While expectations of “accessibility” are increasingly
interpreted as reason to make the entrances to our public buildings as negligible as possible, Wright & Wright has set itself in clear
opposition to that tendency.
Wright & Wright has sensitively extended six centuries of architectural development.
Rather than being faced with the ubiquitous sliding glass door in an all-glass facade, we find the practice has sought to attenuate the
space between the library and the outside world as far as it possibly can. It offers an infinitely richer experience — a sequence that
has been precisely considered both in plan and section. It impresses enormously for the measured way that it reveals information to
the visitor.
If I have one caveat, it is about the handling of the tall window. Given its exceptionally dominant role within the composition, one
expects this element to be the most elaborately developed. Indeed, an artwork, engraved on the glass by artist Lida Kindersley makes
a gesture in that direction, but one is left wanting rather more from the architect. Save for its increased scale, does the window really
have any more presence than if it had been designed at a quarter of the size? Faced with this opportunity, Horace Francis would
surely have offered us a splendid oriel, wreathed in gothic tracery.
Perhaps of more relevance to the question of what Wright & Wright might have done with it is to imagine the response of a figure
like Mackintosh, whose work clearly remains a central reference for the practice.
This quibble aside, Wright & Wright has done a fantastic job in the most constrained of circumstances, producing a building that
sensitively extends six centuries of architectural development. Doubtless, its additions will eventually undergo changes, just as it has
adjusted the work of earlier centuries.
However, the practice cites Ruskin’s edict, “when we build, let us think that we build forever”, as a sentiment close to its heart. That
attachment is borne out by the building that it has delivered — a thing of considerable substance which stands apart from the more
modish concerns of current architectural production.
One suspects that in another six centuries, students at Corpus will still be able to enjoy much of the practice’s work.
(http://www.bdonline.co.uk)
The RCA (Royal College of Art) Library, London – UK 2008/2009
Situated adjacent to the Royal Albert Hall, the library at the Royal College of Art is a sensitive response to the brief and the context.
Readers are seated at the windows with books located in the plan´s depths behind, housed in dense oak bookcases. The exterior is
clad in lead for reasons of style and substance; we were delighted when the celebrated sculptor, Eduardo Paolozzi, was moved to note
“It looks juste like a casting”. A restricted site dictated unconventional and innovative construction techniques: the steel frame was
lifted into place, followed by smaller lighter elements, which could be assembled on site. (Whright)
66