Technical Refurbishment

Restoration of the Liverpool Central Library required a careful marriage of new build with the original listed Victorian building and various extensions added over the years. Stephen Cousins reports.

A turn-up for the books

REFURBISHING A 19TH CENTURY library to meet the standards of a 21st century public library is no easy task, but what happens when that building is also Grade II* listed and sits within a UNESCO World Heritage site? Given the many constraints, how do you open the building up to the public without compromising historic features? And what happens to your construction programme when the site is located next to a building housing a priceless collection of Egyptian artefacts that’s sensitive to even the slightest vibration? These problems have all been faced during the £54m restoration of the new Liverpool Central Library, but it’s only now, in the closing stages of construction, that the team building it will find out if they have made it work. The library is located in the city’s

Cultural Quarter on William Brown Street, an area dominated by several neo- classical buildings including the Walker Art Gallery and the world famous Grade I-listed St George’s Hall. It comprises a number of buildings,

erected as the library expanded over the decades. The first, the William Brown Library and Museum, completed in 1860, stretches along the main William Brown Street frontage and is shared with the city’s museum, World Museum Liverpool. In 1875, this was extended on the eastern side to create the Picton Reading Room, designed by Cornelius Sherlock to mirror the rotunda of the British Museum in London. Then, in 1906, the Hornby Library was added to the north. All three buildings are Grade II*-listed and built in the neo-classical style. Severe bombing during the Second

World War meant that much of the William Brown Library and Museum was destroyed, apart from the facade, which still stands, and this was rebuilt and

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extended in the 1950s and 1970s. Plans to restore the library date back

to the early 2000s when a complete refurbishment was proposed, but the council struggled to find a builder willing to undertake the complicated remodelling and the project was mothballed. A return to the drawing board resulted in the current, more ambitious PFI project, which started on site in November 2010 and involves both the restoration and partial remodelling of all the Grade II* listed buildings, plus the demolition of the 1950s and 1970s structures to create a new building comprising a public library, cafe, full- height atrium and roof terrace. A purpose-built climate-controlled

repository is also being built to the rear, to provide storage for the Liverpool Record Office where 14km of archives and some of the city’s most historic treasures from the last 800 years will be housed in a cutting-edge airtight and humidity-controlled environment. The project is being built for client

Liverpool City Council under a 27-year PFI contract awarded to the Inspire Partnership, a joint venture between International Public Partnerships, Shepherd Construction, architect Austin- Smith:Lord and facilities management services provider Cofely. A PFI is unusual for a public library, but in 2008, when the financial crisis hit and the project was going out to tender, this was seen as the best means of securing funding. Steven Gerard, project manager at

Shepherd, says the nature of the PFI effectively put the firm in the position of a negotiator between different project parties: “There was a tug of war between the end user, Liverpool Library Services and the council, who wanted grandeur, and the FM team, who wanted to extend

“ The conservation ethos was: if it’s not a danger to the structure or likely to create problems in the future, it has to be retained.”

Steven Gerard, Shepherd Construction

Above: the new archive/repository for the city’s archives is clad in copper alloy shingles to look like a treasure box. Above right: The Picton Library with its domed roof epitomises the mixture of old and new

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