The Weston Library is part of the Bodleian Library, the main research library of the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, reopened within the former New Bodleian Library building on the corner of Broad Street and

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in central

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History

From 1937 to 1940, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott worked on the New Bodleian Library, in

Broad Street, Oxford Broad Street is a wide street in central Oxford, England, just north of the former city wall. The street is known for its bookshops, including the original Blackwell's bookshop at number 50, located here due to the University of Oxford. Among re ...

. It is not generally considered his finest work. Needing to provide storage for millions of books without building higher than the surrounding structures, Scott devised a construction going deep into the earth, behind two elevations no higher than those around them. His biographer A. S. G. Butler commented, "In an attempt to be polite to these – which vary from late Gothic to Victorian Tudor – Scott produced a not very impressive neo-Jacobean design". A later biographer, Gavin Stamp, praises the considerable technical achievement of keeping the building low in scale by building underground, but agrees that aesthetically the building is not among Scott's most successful designs.

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

dismisses it as "neither one thing nor the other". The building was constructed of Bladon stone with Clipsham dressings and was opened by King

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. The

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donated 60% of the £1 million cost for the new library building. It included administrative and reading rooms, together with an 11-storey bookstack, three of which are underground. This was connected with the original Bodleian Library underground by a conveyor belt system for books. It is still possible to walk underground between the Radcliffe Camera and the new library building. In the early 21st century, the building was rebuilt internally to the design of WilkinsonEyre behind its original façade to provide improved storage facilities for rare and fragile material, as well as better facilities for readers and visitors. It reopened to readers as the Weston Library on 21 March 2015. Richard Ovenden ( Bodley's Librarian) awarded the Bodley Medal to Professor Stephen Hawking and Sir David Attenborough as part of the official opening ceremony. The transformed library has been generally well-received, being described as a "hey presto moment for the

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" by ''

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'' newspaper. In July 2016, the building was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize for excellence in architecture.

Gallery

File:Weston Library Exterior by John Cairns 20.3.15-67.jpg, The Weston Library main entrance on Broad Street File:Weston Library Blackwell Hall by John Cairns 6.7.15-61.jpg, The Blackwell Hall inside the library File:Weston Library exterior by John Cairns 6.7.15-3.jpg, External view of the gift shop File:Weston Library Blackwell Hall cafe by John Cairns 6.7.15-123.jpg, View of the cafe

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Weston Library 2015 establishments in England Libraries established in 2015 Library buildings completed in 1940 Libraries of the University of Oxford Bodleian Library

History

Gallery

See also

References

External links