Francis Crick Institute | St Pancras | 6fl | U/C

[potto]

this site is now very busy

[TheWalker]

Really! This is good news

[potto]

Originally Posted by Marquinho01

http://www.flickr.com/photos/6507767...in/photostream

http://www.flickr.com/photos/6507767...n/photostream/

The UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI), a world-class biomedical research institute planned for central London. I walked past the site yesterday. It looks like a gorgeous looking building. It should be completed by 2015

links to a couple of photos were posted in the Kings X thread

[Jaeger]

Perhaps the thread title should be changed to 'The Francis Crick Institute' it's new name

http://www.crick.ac.uk/

[BodgeJob1]

Originally Posted by Jaeger

Perhaps the thread title should be changed to 'The Francis Crick Institute' it's new name

http://www.crick.ac.uk/

Hopefully this classy building will distract peoples attention away from that 1980's abomination nearby, otherwise known as the British Library...

[Core Rising]

I think the thread title should be renamed to "The secret zombie research facility" to reflect the type of work we all suspect they will actually be doing.

[Jaeger]

Originally Posted by BodgeJob1

Hopefully this classy building will distract peoples attention away from that 1980's abomination nearby, otherwise known as the British Library...

LOL - I agree the British Library is a drab and rather uninspiring building, it certainly doesn't evoke national or civic pride like say the US Library of Congress nor is it inspiring in a modern way like the new Danish National Library.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Congress

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Diamond_(library)

At best the British Library does blend in (to an extent) with the beautiful victorian gothic St Pancras next door, it is also very functional and does work as a library unlike France's National Library (Bibliothèque nationale de France) in Paris which was beset with problems.

http://www.studio-international.co.u...sh_library.asp

http://www.timeout.com/paris/attract...ois-mitterrand

The Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris -



I suppose to look on the bright side, the original national library at the British Museum still has it's magnificent reading room and the British Museum (a beautiful building) is thriving.

The British Museum (Green Domed Roof) and Senate Library (White Art Deco University of London Library) Aerial

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_...sity_of_London)

image hosted on flickr


British Museum Library reading room (where Karl Marx wrote his communist manifesto)



The British Library has helped to encourage regeneration and redevelopment around the Euston Road and once notoriously seedy Kings Cross area (currently undergoing massive redvelopment), and the site of the modern British Library did not involve demolishing anything of note, it was an unused bomb site.

Whilst something like the Library of Congress would never have looked right on Euston Road, I would have certainly prefered something a lot less drab. I do however look forward to future regeneration around this area, some of which such as the Kings Cross redevelopment is very exciting and the area is also becoming a major cultural, educational and scientific hub drawing on the nearby Bloomsbury quarter which has long been famous for it's educational institutions and cultural vibrance.

http://www.kingscrosscentral.com/

A models of the British Library with it's vast underground storage facilities -

http://www.bl.uk/

http://www.bl.uk/aboutus/quickinfo/facts/index.html



image hosted on flickr


Internally the British Library is far more impressive and very functional



image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


The real star of this area is St Pancras and not the British Library, and I suppose at least the Library does not detract from the beautiful station and does blend in to the surroundings.

http://stpancras.com/

image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr

[*Nurse*]

Originally Posted by Jaeger

Perhaps the thread title should be changed to 'The Francis Crick Institute' it's new name

http://www.crick.ac.uk/

I believe there are preliminary plans for a light railway along here between St Pancras and the new Euston, a bit like below (?)

[Jaeger]

Originally Posted by *Nurse*

I believe there are preliminary plans for a light railway along here between St Pancras and the new Euston, a bit like below (?)

A monorail along Euston Road, we will be lucky to get a cycle-way never mind a monorail given the current economic climate, government cuts and austerity measures

Both stations are already linked via the tube, they are only a few stops from each other

[Sesquip]

Originally Posted by Jaeger

A monorail along Euston Road, we will be lucky to get a cycle-way never mind a monorail given the current economic climate, government cuts and austerity measures

Both stations are already linked via the tube, they are only a few stops from each other

Some sort of people mover will be needed when HS2 arrives at Euston.

The thing that really jumps out in those photos is the grim nature of Euston Road

[Jaeger]

Originally Posted by Sesquip

Some sort of people mover will be needed when HS2 arrives at Euston.

The thing that really jumps out in those photos is the grim nature of Euston Road

HS2 may still be a a long way off and the main future people mover for London is going to be Crossrail

As for the Euston area there are some grounds for optimism given the regeneration of the St Pancras and Kings Cross areas, as well as other schemes. Even ugly Euston Station is going to be given a recently announced makeover.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesi...?newsfeed=true

http://www.skyscrapernews.com/news.php?ref=2935

http://www.aedas.com/Euston-Station

Here's a list of the current Tfl Schemes

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/proj...emes/7500.aspx

http://www.alwaystouchout.com/

http://www.crossrail.co.uk/

[delores]

The pictures of the British library make me feel somewhat let down but the surroundings are what really need work the road is mess. The public realm is just nasty and until that's sorted out it will always look a crappy area.

[UrbanG]

I'm indifferent about the library but I think it is ageing well and pays due repsect to its beautiful and striking neighbour. Some small changes would make a huge difference IMO. I never much liked that unwelcoming arched entrance and the wall which surrounds it - they look too heavy and create unwelcoming barrier to a public building fronted by a large public space - shouldn't we be making more of that rare bit of space by opening it up (visually at least) the street. To lighten it a bit the arch should be removed and the wall lowered and topped with hedges, and if those barriers and street clutter along Euston Rd could be removed as well it would make a significant difference in the photo of the Library (above ) as viewed from Euston Rd.

[PadArch]

Someone said something about the british library being 1980s.. In fact it was completed in 1997.

Anyway in my view it is a wonderful building, and apart from kings cross and st pancras, is the best building in the area. Its also a great place to go and visit, they always have exhibitions on, and the interior foyer in particular, is a great space. I tend to agree about the wall and gateway though, however those were a response to the awful congestion of the euston road.. If that road was improved, maybe the space in front of the library could be better integrated.

Have to say, I'm not at all convinced by the form of the curved roof of the proposed building. Have to wait and see on that.

[potto]

but it was designed in 70's. A post war plan even had Bloomsbury/High Holborn South of the British museum flattened and a giant round library built facing the museum across a large boulevard, something I think would have been worth the destruction.

typical British bureaucracy and confusion over something that has to last, wasn't the site moved about 3 times?

There is a feeling I have that our new batch of architects may have created something that I would feel more comfortable with in this globalised and competitive world in which architecture now plays a leading role in visually celebrating something deemed important enough. Certainly the importance of this building is to be seen inside and the quality of the material and craftsmanship there.

Quick search on the internet and I quite like the opening chapters of a review of a book about the British library's new building and in particular the wicked reference to the Bibliothèque nationale de France of which a photo was posted on this page,




http://www.studio-international.co.u...sh_library.asp

The Architecture of the British Library at St Pancras

Roger Stonehouse, Gerhard Stromberg, Spon Press, Taylor and Francis Group: London and New York, 2004

The British Library famously has had a stormy and protracted development, and it is a tribute to the commitment, determination, and diplomacy of its architect, Sir Colin St John Wilson, that it was finally completed in 1997, and now stands fully operational to its hundreds of daily users. Wilson referred to the saga as his 'Thirty Years War'.

There have also been many attempts to 'play down' the significance and permanent value to the nation of this remarkable building and a slow-burning resentment in the architectural world to this achievement. It forms a complete contrast to the non-saga of the Très Grand Bibliotheque beside the Seine in Paris. The architect there had a splendid, riverside site where, as the late, lamented novelist WG Sebald described it (in his novel Austerlitz), 'you have to travel through a desolate no-man's-land … towards the hideous, outsize building, the monumental dimensions of which were evidently inspired by the late President's wish to perpetuate his memory … unwelcoming if not inimical to human beings and runs counter, on principle, one might say, to the requirements of any true reader'. All the promise of a great institution had been dissipated.

Thankfully, there has been no equivalent to the President in London, only the distant braying of a privileged on-looker in extremis.

This author had the pleasure of taking Hans Hollein, over from Vienna, around the British Library building, with the architect nervously in tow. By contrast to Paris, Hollein's reaction here was one of complete admiration, coming from a city that is not tolerant of any but the most meticulous detailing. And yet there is still a hush in London. Now Professor Roger Stonehouse's new book, The British Library at St Pancras stands witness to Wilson's achievement. The sources of inspiration for the Library are, of course, widespread, as one would expect from Wilson, one of the most outstanding teachers of architecture of his generation. Most fundamental as a source for Wilson is Alvar Aalto. But the full disposition of the building draws upon European Modernist sources of the less than recent past: of Dudok; of Louis Kahn; and unavoidably for Cambridge, and Leslie Martin, Wilson's mentor, the English Free Style.

It is curious that although this building constitutes a national British triumph, and is replete almost unwittingly with numerous international references, it exhibits a particularly English ambience, not least on account of the brick-cladding (pace Aalto), as well as more diplomatically in the homage paid in the eastward prospect to Scott's St Pancras Station skyline. Here is a British representation of 20th century Modernism, on the one hand, and of the powerful 'Other Tradition of Modernism' (which Wilson has documented and promoted for the correction of history), just as vehemently set out as was Scott's interpretation there of the English mode of the traditions of high European Gothic, for 19th century travellers to the English Midlands.

[Jaeger]

Functionally the British library is very good and internally it serves the public well. However it's not something that personally evokes any great passion or pride in the same way the British Museum Library did or in the same way as the Library of Congress in Washington DC.

I do not dislike the British Library building, I just don't love it and at best I am pleased that it blends in well with the surrounding area and the magnificent St Pancras Station.

I guess everyone has differing personal taste and if we all had the same taste the world would be a far less inspiring place. I am also aware that public buildings such as the British Library, Barbican and Southbank are often controversial and divide public opinion.

Still at least our Library functions well and is in many critics opinion far superior to the Très Grand Bibliotheque in Paris which has been plagued with problems not least the fact that they had to buy blinds after they realised the sun streaming through the windows was ruining the books, whilst the windswept space between the French Libraries four main buildings has also been widely criticised.

One of the vast reading rooms in the British Library

[PadArch]

that library in paris is an absolute disaster.. i used to live very close to it, and visited it on numerous occasions.

I know what you mean about evoking pride etc, but I'd rather have a building that works, looks good in place, sensitive to the st pancras, than some stupid egotistic monument which doesn't even function. i think in architecture there's sometimes a fine line between pride and embarassment.. the reason that the paris library is so embarrassing is that they aimed for maximum pride.. and flopped

[Jaeger]

Originally Posted by PadArch

that library in paris is an absolute disaster.. i used to live very close to it, and visited it on numerous occasions.

I know what you mean about evoking pride etc, but I'd rather have a building that works, looks good in place, sensitive to the st pancras, than some stupid egotistic monument which doesn't even function. i think in architecture there's sometimes a fine line between pride and embarassment.. the reason that the paris library is so embarrassing is that they aimed for maximum pride.. and flopped

I totally agree - the French library is a monument to a French Presidents ego, whilst the British Library is far more subtle and far more practical. The British Library does blend in well with the nearby St Pancras station and does not try to outshine it's beautiful neighbour. The BL is far more about form and function than the French Très Grand Bibliotheque a building designed to shout it's presence as a moument to the late President Mitterrand. Perhaps the British Library reflects a nation that doesn't need to shout about it's acheivements and can afford to be more subtle and understated.

[potto]

Also there is a tension in France about the role of the french language and her literacy history in the modern world, so I guess the emphasis to go all out on a larger than life statement was pretty inevitable.

[lasdun]

The BL might not be an attention seeker, but in 200 years when the Bibliotec National is long gone, I'll be the BL will still be there, still be a great place to visit and study.

It's not 'pretty', but it works. It's the study Britannia to the showy Marianne.