The Design and Construction of the British Library


Book Description

"The British Library at St Pancras, the major public monument built in the United Kingdom in the 20th Century, opened to the public in April 1998. Professor Sir Colin St John Wilson has spent the greater part of his working life on the project from 1962 onwards when various schemes for a building adjacent to the British Museum were proposed, through to the completion phase of the present design." "This book reveals how Professor Wilson and his team responded to successive changes in the Brief, whilst determinedly maintaining a commitment to the very highest quality in all aspects of a building designed to last 250 years. Illustrated with many original drawings and specially-commissioned photographs, it will appeal to anyone interested in modern architecture."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved




The Architecture of the British Library at St. Pancras


Book Description

In a series of interrelated essays, this book describes the British Library and the issues surrounding its design, construction, purpose and place in the architectural canon. Examining the experience of the building together with its form, these essays explore the ideas and aspirations behind its conception and its construction, offering insight into this striking, controversial, and stimulating building. For artists, architects and building professionals interested in the current debates concerning architecture and our culture, The Architecture of the British Library at St. Pancras is a stimulating read.




The British Library


Book Description

The British Library at St Pancras opened to the public in April 1998 and no other project in Britain since the building of St Paul s Cathedral is comparable in time-scale or the magnitude of controversy surrounding it. Professor Sir Colin St John Wilson




The Magnificent Maps Puzzle Book


Book Description

The British Library has one of the largest and most impressive cartographic collections in the world, including manuscript maps and atlases, administrative records and plans, large-scale surveys, and digital maps. From this rich resource, 100 fascinating examples ranging from world and city maps, celestial and sea charts, literary and statistical maps, curiosities and fake maps have been selected as the basis for this puzzle book. Each map is faithfully reproduced with a description of its creation and use, followed by details showing areas of particular interest. Readers are asked to scrutinize the maps to answer a series of historical and geographical questions, all the while enjoying new perspectives on the world we live in provided by our eclectic and extensive archive.




Big Plans


Book Description

This work springs from the idea that human aspirations for the city tend to overstate the role of rationality in public life. The author explores the part serendipity plays in urban experience.




The Architecture of the British Library at St. Pancras


Book Description

In a series of interrelated essays, the authors describe the British Library at St. Pancras. They explore the underlying aspirations and ideas behind the building and examine the technology that was instrumental in its construction.




Libraries of Light


Book Description

For the first hundred years or so of their history, public libraries in Britain were built in an array of revivalist architectural styles. This backward-looking tradition was decisively broken in the 1960s as many new libraries were erected up and down the country. In this new Routledge book, Alistair Black argues that the architectural modernism of the post-war years was symptomatic of the age’s spirit of renewal. In the 1960s, public libraries truly became ‘libraries of light’, and Black further explains how this phrase not only describes the shining new library designs – with their open-plan, decluttered, Scandinavian-inspired designs – but also serves as a metaphor for the public library’s role as a beacon of social egalitarianism and cultural universalism. A sequel to Books, Buildings and Social Engineering (2009), Black's new book takes his fascinating story of the design of British public libraries into the era of architectural modernism.




A Book of Book Lists


Book Description

"This is a book of book lists. Not of the '1,001 Books You MUST Read Before You Die' variety but lists that tell stories. Lists that make you smile, make you wonder, and see titles together in entirely new ways. From Bin Laden's bookshelf to the books most frequently left in hotels, from prisoners' favourite books to MPs' most borrowed books, these lists are proof that a person's bookcase tells you everything you need to know about them, and sometimes more besides."--




Libraries - A Design Manual


Book Description

Der Bautyp Bibliotheken unterlag in den letzten zehn Jahren einem enormen Wandel. Meilensteine wie Rem Koolhaas‘ Stadtbibliothek in Seattle von 2004 definierten den Typus komplett neu und spiegelten die Entwicklung vom elitären Bildungstempel hin zum öffentlichen Wohnzimmer. Mischformen zwischen Bibliothek und Kaufhaus oder Theater entstanden. Zudem ist die Allgegenwart elektronischer Medien planerisch zu berücksichtigen; jede neue Bibliothek enthält heute Bereiche komplett ohne Bücher. Dieses Grundlagenwerk stellt in einem breiten systematischen Teil die entwurflichen, technischen und planerischen Voraussetzungen des Bibliotheksbaus dar. Spezialaspekte wie RFID, Zeichensysteme, Akustik oder besondere statische Anforderungen werden in eigenen Beiträgen von Experten erläutert. In vier Kategorien – Nationalbibliotheken, große öffentliche Bibliotheken, kleine öffentliche Bibliotheken, wissenschaftliche Bibliotheken – werden schließlich ca. 40 internationale wegweisende Projekte dokumentiert, darunter Jo Coenens Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, Alvaro Sizas Kleinod der Stadtbibliothek für Viana do Castelo oder Mecanoos 2013 eröffnete Library of Birmingham.




Leicester Engineering Building


Book Description

James Stirling was one of the most influential architects of the late twentieth century. He established his world-wide reputation in the 1960s while still in partnership with James Gowan, and his strong personal style is first seen to emerge in the extraordinary Leicester University Engineering Building, the last project to be completed by the partnership. Its slender, almost transparent, tower rises above the projecting forms of its wedge-shaped auditoria. This constructivist inspired ensemble is juxtaposed with the industrial toughness of the engineering workshops whose saw-tooth factory glazing cuts across its roof at an acute angle, setting up a powerful and contradictory geometry.