Quiet, please
The idea for my new book about libraries occurred to me when, as an architecture student, I wrote a dissertation about the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford. Naturally, I started by looking for a book that surveyed the whole history of library architecture. Then, the only significant works in English were JW Clark’s The Care Of Books, published in 1901, and the excellent but relatively short chapter on the subject by Nikolaus Pevsner in his A History Of Build-ing Types (1976). When, 20 years later, I still could not find a book, it seemed permissible to write one myself.
Left: Phillips Exeter Academy Library in New Hampshire, USA was built in 1971. All aspects, such as light and the visual experience, were considered at design stage, making it warm, impressive and highly functional. Right: This picture: In the main reading room of the Russian State Library, Moscow, built in 1945, a statue of Lenin presides
The irony is that today we are told that the book, and hence the library, is under threat, but the sales of physical books are increasing, not diminishing: 229 million were sold in the UK alone in 2010.
Library of Celsus, AD 135, in Ephesus, Turkey. This is one of the best-preserved libraries in the ancient world, but the facade is a 20th-century reconstruction
Perhaps the world will switch entirely to digital books in the future, but in the meantime an unprecedented volume of physical books must be stored.
Left: The Communications and Media Centre, Cottbus, Germany, built in 2004, with brightly coloured spiral staircase. Right: The Liyuan Library in Jiaojiehe, China, built in 2012, has an exterior of flexed twigs wedged between rusty steel rails
Indeed, the history of libraries has always been a story of constant change and adaptation, as these beautiful pictures show.
Five tiers of ornamental cast-iron balconies rise to a skylight 61ft above ground level at the George Peabody Library (1878) in Baltimore, USA
The Library: A World History by James WP Campbell, with photography by Will Pryce, is published by Thames & Hudson, priced £48.
Left: Phillips Exeter Academy Library in New Hampshire, USA was built in 1971. All aspects, such as light and the visual experience, were considered at design stage, making it warm, impressive and highly functional. Right: This picture: In the main reading room of the Russian State Library, Moscow, built in 1945, a statue of Lenin presidesThe irony is that today we are told that the book, and hence the library, is under threat, but the sales of physical books are increasing, not diminishing: 229 million were sold in the UK alone in 2010.
Library of Celsus, AD 135, in Ephesus, Turkey. This is one of the best-preserved libraries in the ancient world, but the facade is a 20th-century reconstructionPerhaps the world will switch entirely to digital books in the future, but in the meantime an unprecedented volume of physical books must be stored.
Left: The Communications and Media Centre, Cottbus, Germany, built in 2004, with brightly coloured spiral staircase. Right: The Liyuan Library in Jiaojiehe, China, built in 2012, has an exterior of flexed twigs wedged between rusty steel railsIndeed, the history of libraries has always been a story of constant change and adaptation, as these beautiful pictures show.
Five tiers of ornamental cast-iron balconies rise to a skylight 61ft above ground level at the George Peabody Library (1878) in Baltimore, USAThe Library: A World History by James WP Campbell, with photography by Will Pryce, is published by Thames & Hudson, priced £48.