Architecture
The current UL building was constructed between 1931 and 1934 under architect Giles Gilbert Scott, who also designed the neighbouring Clare Memorial Court (part of Clare College). It bears a marked resemblance to Scott's industrial architecture, a famous example of which is Bankside Power Station (the home of the Tate Modern). Its tower stands 157 feet (48 metres) tall, six feet shorter than the top of St John's College Chapel and ten feet taller than the peak of King's College Chapel. Contemporary reports stated that in opening the building, Chamberlain referred to it as "this magnificent erection", although this phrase is also attributed by tradition to George V. The fictional "Dark Tower" in the novel of that name (attributed to C. S. Lewis) was a replica of this building. Contrary to popular belief, pornographic material is not stored in the tower.
The library has been extended several times. The main building houses the Japanese and Chinese collections in the Aoi Pavilion, an extension donated by Tadao Aoi and opened in 1998.
Read more about this topic: Cambridge University Library
Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“I don’t think of form as a kind of architecture. The architecture is the result of the forming. It is the kinesthetic and visual sense of position and wholeness that puts the thing into the realm of art.”
—Roy Lichtenstein (b. 1923)
“Polarized light showed the secret architecture of bodies; and when the second-sight of the mind is opened, now one color or form or gesture, and now another, has a pungency, as if a more interior ray had been emitted, disclosing its deep holdings in the frame of things.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)