Colin St. John Wilson wrote that ‘to every scholar a library is a personal realm of secret topography.’ To help create this feeling, he designed the interior of the British Library to produce a sensory impression on the readers, since ‘we touch, hear and smell a building as much as we see it.’ Wilson chose natural materials such as leather and bronze for fixtures, marble for the entrance hall flooring, and wood for details such as the reading room balcony railings, in order to produce these sensory effects.
Nearly everything in the library was designed by Colin St. John Wilson & Partners, from the structure of the building right down to the handles on the reading room doors. The archive contains many sketches and drawings of these details, which provide interesting evidence of the design process. In order to refine their designs, Wilson and his team used tracings and photocopies of their earlier drawings, over-drawn and often coloured in, re-copied and altered to show different variations.
The experience of using the library directly results from this process. From the light and airy entrance hall, which is filled with artwork and comfortable seating, the reader is led further in, to galleries, shops, restaurant and study areas via sweeping stairs and escalators. In order to enter the reading rooms, they must venture further into the building. Ascending and bearing left, they encounter the impressive double doors leading into the Humanities reading room. Grasping a massive handle, they pull the door open.
The door handles provide both visual and tactile sensory impressions.The reading room doors feel heavy and solid as the reader opens them.This mechanism, the floorspring, controls the closure of the doors, and ensures they remain closed.
The reader passes through the first set of doors into a vestibule leading to a second set of doors. The doors swing closed, blocking out the sound from the entrance hall and open levels of restaurant and study areas. By the time they reach the next set of doors, all is quiet; no noise from outside will intrude into the reading room. The ceiling of the vestibule seems low, after the openness of the space outside.
Passing through the second set of doors into the reading room, the space opens out again, into a vista of tiered balconies.
From the lower floor, you can look up at the balconies of further reading rooms above. Use the slider to compare the sketch to the more finished drawingThese drawings of balcony railings show the use of photocopies to produce design variations.The height of the railings was carefully calculated to obscure the view of the floors below so as to minimize distraction for the readers.
Moving into the room, the reader chooses a desk. The desks are spacious, providing plenty of room to spread out books and note-taking equipment, and the chairs are comfortable.
The size and height of the desks, and the distance in between rows, were also meticulously planned out.This drawing shows the reading room in use. Many of the details shown here were changed in the final design.
The end result of all of this attention to detail is a space which is both grand and personal in scale. The journey into the reading room suceeds in creating the impression of entering a special place, secluded from the bustle of life outside. The library itself encompasses many different spaces, each with its own particular sensory atmosphere, and each designed to become a part of the reader’s own secret topography.
*****
References:
Wilson, Colin St. John, The Design and Construction of the British Library, London, British Library, 1998.
Notes:
The names of the reading rooms underwent many changes as the design of the library was altered, meaning that the designations on the drawings often do not correspond to the current names.
For more details of the reading room lighting fixtures, see ‘Shadows under the Tables’ below.
2023 marks the 25th anniversary of the official opening of the British Library, and the 50th anniversary of its creation as an institution. The British Library was designed by Colin St. John Wilson & Partners, and forms a large part of the archive this project was set up to catalogue. So it seems appropriate to celebrate these anniversaries, with a list of five things you may be surprised to find out about the design and building of the library.
1. The British Library was originally meant to be built in Bloomsbury, across from the British Museum.
It would have formed part of a larger complex, including housing and shops. The complex was designed by Colin St. John Wilson & Partners but never built, mainly due to the large-scale demolition of existing buildings that this would have involved.
The drawings below show how it would have looked from the outside:
CSJW/1/47/7/14/3/4CSJW/1/47/7/14/3/2
This section shows the structure of the interior, with St. George’s church, which would have been preserved as part of the complex, at the right.
Section of the British Library Bloomsbury showing reading room terraces at centre. CSJW/1/47/7/13/1/2
2. The library wasn’t designed by just one person.
Four different architects worked on the initial designs, but they were later joined by many more. In fact, a very large number of architects worked on the project. Many of the design and working drawings were initialled by their creators. The cataloguing is not yet finished, but to date at least 35 different sets of initials have appeared. It is difficult to determine how many drawings they produced, due to the way in which numbers were assigned, and the re-use of drawings for multiple design revisions. At a conservative estimate, over 20,000 drawings must have been created.
This chart shows the schedule for production of just some of the working drawings needed. It is itself listed as drawing AD 5340, labelled in the drawing register as ‘Outline Programme.’
3. The library took nearly 25 years to design and build.
Design work started in 1975, when the architects at Colin St. John Wilson & Partners were presented with the new site next to St. Pancras. Their task was complicated by three major factors: the irregular shape of the site, the tube tunnels which run underneath, and the necessity of providing smoke vents for the deep basement levels where the books are stored.
This early drawing shows where the tube tunnels run under the site.
This later drawing shows the shallower basement over the tube tunnels.Smoke vents in the library forecourt. Photograph by Alix Robinson.
The four architects then on the team, Colin St. John Wilson, M.J. Long, Peter Carolin and Douglas Lanham, each came up with an initial idea, one of which was chosen to develop into the final design.
Wilson’s design ignored the need for smoke vents, and so was not chosen.
Carolin and Lanham came up with designs in which the smoke vents ran in lines across the site, in between rectangular buildings connected by corridors. These were combined and developed into a fifth option, shown here, but it was felt to be an awkward solution to the shape of the site.
Long’s design provided a courtyard, with the two wings housing the reading rooms joined by a central space which would form the grand entrance and catalogue hall. While it lacked sufficient smoke vents, Long was able to adapt it to include them. This design was chosen for further development.
The design process went through 21 numbered stages before building work began. The final ‘Completion Phase’ design continued to be changed and adapted during the building process.
4. Only part of the library was actually built.
The initial design involved three stages of building work, which would have enabled the library to be used while further construction continued. A large amount of work was put into designing spaces which could be converted from one use to another as the building expanded. However, in the end, only the first stage was built.
The plan on the left shows stage A20. Use the slider to compare it to the Completion Phase plan.
5. The library was designed to last for a very long time.
In 1998, the library was officially opened by the Queen. This year marks the 25th anniversary of its opening, but it is designed to last long enough to celebrate its 250th anniversary.
During the 1980s, Queen Mary University of London, known then as Queen Mary College, went through a number of architectural revamps and developments. One of these was a new library, built by Colin St John Wilson and Partners, which opened in 1988.
The new library’s west wing, seen from the south. Credit: RIBA Collections
Retrospectively, this project could be seen as representing a kind of crossroads for its architect, M. J. Long. She broke away completely from traditional library design in its formulation. Guidance administered by the main funding body for university libraries, the University Grants Committee, had grown outdated since it was issued in the 1960s. Long reveals her dismay with this old approach, and puts forward her own process in correspondence from our archives…
‘What seems to be expected (if I can exaggerate a bit) is an air conditioned building of regular (ideally square) outline, uniform ceiling height, and plan area interrupted only by economically spaced fire stairs. The Librarians at QMC pointed out, however, that they felt disorientated in such buildings and that they had heard horror stories from their occupants about the failings of the air conditioning systems.’
Two sketches by MJ Long, comparing the traditional “stereotype” library floorplan, and her vision for QMC. CSJW/1/51/18
Long’s consultations with librarians reflect the collaborative spirit that she worked in. This is further shown in the visits she made to other recently finished university libraries, such as Bristol and Newcastle, to see what staff liked and disliked there.
A couple of snaps from MJ’s trip to Newcastle and its university library. CSJW/1/51/31/8
The finished library was ‘economical, efficient and delightful’ according to the Architects’ Journal, which published a special study showcasing the new building. As suggested on Long’s website, she ‘broke new ground in the design of university libraries by omitting air conditioning in favour of mechanical ventilation, by using natural daylight for reading areas, as much as possible, and by using perimeter distribution to supply all reading places with a point of connection to electric power and data cabling.’ It adds, ‘these characteristics have since become almost routine for university libraries.’
‘The one extravagance in the building is the accommodation stair which forms the spatial link and focus of the building.’ – The Architects’ Journal, March 1989.Credit: RIBA CollectionsThe main arts and sciences reading room.Credit: RIBA Collections
The QMC Library could also be seen as a crossroads since it was the final project that M. J. Long worked on under her husband’s practice, Colin St John Wilson and Partners. In 1994, she teamed up with Rolfe Kentish to form a new practice, Long and Kentish. She discussed the move with Wilson, who actively encouraged the decision. Wilson, Long and Kentish was discussed as a possible name, but Wilson advocated against it. He suggested that when the British Library was finished in 1997, this building is all that potential clients would associate with his name, apart from, maybe, his old age.
Mary Jane Long, Sir Colin St John Wilson and Rolfe Kentish, at the London office of architects Long & Kentish in April 2004, during work on the new wing for Pallant House Gallery.Credit: Anne-Katrin Purkiss / RIBA CollectionsSir Colin St John Wilson and M. J. Long, architects, at the opening of the new wing for Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, in June 2006 in front of a painting, ‘The Architects’ by R. B. Kitaj.Credit: Anne-Katrin Purkiss / RIBA Collections
Long and Kentish continued to work with Wilson on a number of projects before his death in 2007. Arguably the most significant of these was the very last project that Wilson worked on, the Pallant House Gallery extension, which opened in 2006. The gallery is now home to the couple’s exceptional collection of modern British art, including R. B. Kitaj’s painting of them, seen above, and throughout our blog.
Please get in touch if you’d like to learn more or arrange a visit to the archives! You can find our details in the “contact” tab at the top of this page.
Delving into the lighting design of the British Library reveals a battle to achieve a revolution in UK library lighting, spearheaded by M. J. Long. For Women’s History Month, it seems appropriate to write about this design, which Long refers to in her Architects’ Lives interview with Jill Lever as ‘really my thing.’
Long’s familiarity with American public buildings, which at the time provided a greater variation in lighting than those in the UK, led her to bring in American lighting designer William Lam as a consultant. This was common practice in America, but unusual in the UK, where mechanical and electrical contractors would specify the lighting, based on technical knowledge of the fixtures which would supply the required lighting levels in an economical way. Long was determined to create a more interesting design which would create visual appeal and improve the reading environment.
Lam’s recommendations for reading room lighting, from minutes of a meeting on November 4th, 1981. CSJW/1/48/1/3/27
M. J. Long’s determination to implement this scheme was not based merely on aesthetic considerations. UK library lighting regulations at that time required an absence of glare which equated, essentially, to an absence of any shadows at all, even under the tables. She describes the effects of this uniform level of lighting as disorienting, like having an inner-ear infection or being underwater. Both she and Colin St. John Wilson contended that this led to reader fatigue. The British Library’s natural and artificial lighting were designed to work together to produce a more stimulating effect, especially for readers in the Humanities reading rooms, who might spend the entire day working there.
One of the ways in which they achieved this was to bounce lighting off reflective interior surfaces, such as the reading room and entrance hall ceilings. As the weather in London is frequently cloudy, and in addition, in winter the library is open after dark, daylight could not be relied on as the sole source of this light. Artificial lighting would be needed to enhance and continue the daylight effects.
Reading room lighting diagrammatic section, with dashed lines showing the lighting angles.
In the Humanities and Rare Books reading rooms, the artificial lighting follows the scheme set out by the clerestory and lantern windows. Coffered ceilings are lit in such a way as to imitate the appearance of indirect natural light coming from above. This reflected lighting would enliven the atmosphere of the room, but would not provide sufficient light on the page or computer screen, so floor-level uplighters and table lamps were added.
Reading room uplighters, final design on the left, early sketch on the right.
In the science reading rooms, designed for readers who spend less time per visit, daylight enters from louvred windows to the side, rather than from above. These rooms are arranged so that the readers sit along the side nearest the windows. Open book stacks fill the majority of the space, requiring a very different lighting design from the reader seating.
This reflected ceiling plan shows the windows at the right, with an indication of where the balcony edges fall, and the lighting for the book stacks to the left.
In the entrance hall, Long wanted to highlight the ceilings without creating a blast of light. Having too much light on such high surfaces would make the lower areas where people stand seem overly dark by comparison. In order to avoid this, she used reflected light from hidden fixtures, set to reproduce the angle at which incoming daylight would reflect off the surface under the clerestory windows, to highlight the curves of the ceiling, and wall-washers to add light lower down by reflecting off the walls.
In addition, Long took Lam’s advice on lighting specific areas of interest, rather than just the space in general, using directed lighting to highlight architectural features and works of art. Shakespeare’s statue proved difficult; Long’s notes from a meeting with Lam on 2 July 1986 read, ‘Shakespeare should be lit, although this presents a practical problem of where to locate the light source.’ (CSJW 1/48/1/2/12/1) Finally, the entrance hall features hanging lights designed by Finnish architect Juha Leiviskä which Long describes as being really art rather than lighting, adding a small number of incandescent lights to the low-energy sources used everywhere else in the building. In Lever’s interview, she admits that perhaps they went too far with the the complexity of the design, and the number of different types of fixtures, but argues that the effort was worth it to produce ‘an environment that has some life in it’ for the readers.
Entrance Hall lighting, diagrammatic section drawn by M. J. Long.
Installing such a complex lighting arrangement meant re-designing parts of the building. In a letter to Lam dated 8 July 1986, Long writes of difficulties with services layouts, which the engineers had designed assuming a flat ceiling. Lam’s suggestion, described in notes of a meeting on the second of July, of a ceiling with a two-step cross-section, had therefore been deemed unacceptable, as ‘either a central vault or a set of linear suspended fittings would ruin the airflow pattern.’ Long’s solution was to re-design the ceiling shape yet again. Lam responded on the 15th of August that he was ‘disappointed with the follow-up results that John [Barrow] was able to negotiate with the engineers.’ Long wrote back on the 11th of September, saying that unfortunately she had ‘not moved forcefully enough soon enough’, and that between government departments and contractors, other consultants and their client, she ‘cannot be seen to be asking for any redesign in areas largely completed for bill documents.’ (CSJW/1/48/1/2/12/1)
Reflected ceiling plan with notes regarding alterations.
Long credits the finished work to the joint efforts of the whole team of architects, engineers and consultants who worked on it, but the archive reveals that she herself spent considerable time and effort not only on the design, but in seeing it carried out. Despite the constraints of budget, time and regulations which necessitated or prevented the re-design of various areas, she achieved a lighting scheme which interacts with the natural light to enhance the architecture and enliven the atmosphere of the library for visitors and readers. And yes, there are shadows under the tables.
As described by architectural historian and former Wilson Project Curator, Ewan Harrison, the site at Euston was not always destined to house the British Library. In 1974, while the British Library project had stalled in its Bloomsbury iteration, the site at Euston was a disused railway depot spanning 9 of 12 acres of land owned by the National Freight Corporation (NFC). When the Euston site was flagged as a possible alternative to the increasingly overcrowded Bloomsbury design for the Library in late 1974, Colonel Richard Seifert, architect of modern commercial tower-blocks, already had his own plans. He was working on designing a complex of towers for Rupert Murdoch’s News International, including offices and a print-works. But by early 1975, government players were preparing to tackle to take the site for the British Library. Thanks to Wilson, we have records of phone-calls and interactions with key figures in the project, leaving us a detailed account of decisions, agreements, tactics and, most entertainingly, his opinions.
Use the slider to compare: Left image: Photoprint showing Seifert & Partners’ model for the Somers Town Redevelopment, c1975. The section of the model presenting the News International print-works and offices has been cut out, presumably by Wilson & Partners, perhaps to inform their own model, Ref: CSJW/1/48/1/12/4/1/1; Right image: Photoprint of Wilson & Partners’ Feasibility model, reproduced in a Feasibility Study report in June 1975, Ref: CSJW/1/48/1/12/4/1/3
To set the scene, it’s useful to know each party’s motivations. The NFC who owned the land were keen to sell. According to correspondence between Wilson and James Ellis (Liaison Officer for the Department of the Environment), we learn that the NFC believed there was a fortune to be made from selling the land to News International. Meanwhile, London Borough of Camden were hoping to use the site for housing and public amenities such as swimming pools, and the Department of the Environment were backing the British Library.
Seifert’s plans were already developed when in February 1975, Wilson was first invited to meet him to discuss his proposals to share the site between the Library and News International. Perhaps understandably, Seifert didn’t react well to being told of other potential uses for the site – he accused London Borough of Camden of “renegading on a signed deal” and insisted that NFC would continue to use the sites at Euston rather hand it over for the Library. Seifert also arguably made a misstep when he flatly admits disregarding Camden’s Planning Department’s issues with the height of his buildings – claiming he could easily surpass their storey limit. Unbeknownst to Wilson, Seifert actually wrote to Camden’s Planning Department after the meeting to let them know that he and Wilson were working out how to share the site, which hadn’t been agreed and put Wilson in a tricky position.
Calculations of Seifert’s Euston scheme made by Wilson & Partners, after the Department of the Environment asked for evidence to demonstrate that co-habitation of the site was impossible. Ref: CSJW/1/48/1/3/2
One of Seifert’s suggestions of how the British Library and News International could co-habit the site (with the BL taking around 5 acres) was to house some books in glass towers above printing presses. While the Department of the Environment and Wilson & Partners rejected this proposal due to fire regulations, it’s interesting to note a similar idea was followed through for the François-Mitterand Library, Paris (the French national library), designed by Dominique Perrault in 1989 (opened 1995). The positioning of books in its large glass towers above ground proved problematic for preservation as collections were at risk from condensation, heat and intense light exposure. Modifications were necessary during construction in attempt to remedy these factors.
Differing plans for the site came to a head at a meeting in June 1975. Wilson’s colourful summary of the meeting depicts Seifert in a way which chimes with his common representation as a formidable opponent.
First, in the attendees of his typed minutes for the meeting, Wilson lists Seifert’s ‘Chauffeur and Strongman’ bringing in his architectural model. We also learn about Seifert’s outrage at being ousted from the site. He warned of a “national scandal” arising from this affront to taxpayer’s money (the Library deal would significantly reduce the revenue which would have been provided by the News International deal, and this would be in addition to the already costly project of building a new national library). To this Tom Shearer of the Department of the Environment said, “don’t you try to bully me”.
Despite his outburst, Seifert and News International were quietly shuffled off. In a letter to Wilson in August that year, Shearer wrote, “You will be pleased to see that News International now seem to have disappeared through a trap door. I should stress that Colonel Seifert has not yet been told of the latest developments. I am anxious that the information should come from the NFC and not from you or me!” (01 August 1975, Tom Shearer, DoE, to Wilson)
Wilson’s minutes of a meeting between representatives from Department of the Environment, Colin St John Wilson & Partners, Richard Seifert & Partners and the Freight Corporation, 25 June 1975. Ref: CSJW/1/48/1/1/1/1/1
As Ewan previously stated, “counterfactuals are always alluring to the historian and these drawings offer a tantalising glimpse of a path not taken”. With Wilson’s correspondence and notes, we’re able to dig a little deeper into the politics and decisions behind the final, and potential alternatives to, the British Library.
The Colin St John Wilson & Partners Project 