The British Library at St. Pancras is not only one of the largest and most complex buildings in the UK, it is also a profound statement and restatement of deeply rooted architectural values. The Library is the major public monument built in the UK in the second half of the 20th Century and opened in April 1998. No other project in Britain since the building of St Paul's Cathedral is comparable in time-scale or magnitude of controversy surrounding it. It is a building form from which there is much to be learnt: from the intentions which underlie its design, from its response to its purpose and use, from the architecture itself and from the technology of its construction and servicing.
In a series of interrelated essays, the book describes the building and the experience of the building and explores it in the context of its underlying ideas and aspirations. This will be of interest both to those who have a general interest in the current debates concerning architecture and our culture and to specialist librarians, professional and academic architects, arts and architecture historians and other building professionals