DIFFICULT SITES 079
Conservative government reduced its spending commitment from £22.5m to £9m across the first four years. Significant changes to the design were required and after more delays, disputes and political wrangling, the project was finally truncated at Phase One in 1988. To make matters worse, Camden Council insisted that the library frontage be set back and that its height not exceed 15m so as to preserve views of the adjacent Midland Grand Hotel,
George Gilbert Scott’s Gothic masterpiece built in 1873. Te library got there in the end, though not without suffering the injustice of being described by King Charles III as ‘a building suiting an academy for secret policemen’. A beautifully rendered coloured pencil illustration by Eric Winter depicts the smart-looking structure from Midland Road, showing it in relation to the nearby hotel. Tough striking in their differences, the two buildings sit together
amicably, thanks in large part to the fact that the library’s architects specified identical red bricks throughout, with over 11 million sourced from the same Peterborough brickworks used by Scott. Despite its fraught history, the British Library stands today as a modern landmark and, as with all of the brilliant projects showcased in this RIBA exhibition, reflects the extraordinary perseverance and resourcefulness of architects in the face of adversity.
Left The new Coventry Cathedral, by Basil Spence, was a radically modern design rising from the remains of the medieval original, which had been destroyed in November 1940 during the Second World War. Having stood for more than 500 years, the cathedral was completely burnt out, leaving only its tower, spire and outer walls standing. Spence won the competition to find an appropriate architectural solution and his scheme looked to preserve as much of the original structure as possible, proposing that the ruins would act as a garden of remembrance and a symbolic entrance to the new building
Right, top Restrictive planning conditions set by Camden Council presented a significant challenge to Colin St. John Wilson and MJ Long, the architects appointed in 1962 to design the new British Library in London. Initially proposed for a site opposite the British Museum, the library finally opened 30 years later in 1998 on a brownfield site once used as a railway goods yard near St. Pancras
Right Cornwall’s Eden Project, a major visitor attraction designed by Grimshaw Architects, combines science, art and sustainability. Opened in 2001, the complex features two huge enclosures consisting of interlinking domes that house thousands of plant species from around the world. The carefully maintained ecosystems of the Eden Project thrive within a former disused china clay quarry, where shifting ground soil and crumbling chalk cliffs were among the challenges that Grimshaw had to overcome
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