The entrance to the Library itself lies in the north-east corner of the courtyard flanked to the left by the display window of the Bookshop. The general form of the building is a direct reflection of the volumetric content within and, in being so, embodies the fundamental asymmetry in the pattern of use in the reading rooms to which we have alluded.

Thus the western range of the building houses the closed-access Humanities reading rooms and therefore receives its daylight through rooflights and clerestories and has no windows whereas the eastern range, which houses the open-access reading rooms of the Science Collections, derives its daylight from side windows continuous with horizontal louvres. The roof of the central entrance and concourse rises in a catenary of three steepening waves. The tower containing various service shafts assumes in addition the status of a formal clock-tower. 

The primary purpose ofthe Piazza enclosure isthat itwill allow the visiting reader to regain the tranquillity that was lost in the street and also to have a place in good weather in which to rest between spells of work. It is however also open in normal day-time hours to the general public: and since it is the only open public space in the neighbourhood and, furthermore, will lie adjacent to the proposed Channel Tunnel Terminal, it should take on the unique sense of a place of a rendez-vous not only for the Library but also to visitors to and from the Continent.

The big roof is both the most direct solution as well as the clearest indication of the presence of large spatial volumes within. In so being itnot only helps to relate the Library to the roofs of St Pancras Chambers compositionally but also, by reference to many historic precedents, underlines the monumental status of the Library itself. Brick was chosen as the facing material both because it is the one material that in this climate improves rather than degenerates in appearance over time but also to orchestrate the Library on a broad scale with St Pancras whose bricks come from the same source in Leicestershire. The colours for the metal sun louvres and trim to the ground floor panels and columns were also selected as common to both buildings.

The upper portion of the Science Reading Room was cut back to allow more of St Pancras Chambers to be seen from the Piazza, the inimitable ornateness ofthe hotel being deliberately complemented by a certain austerity in the Library itself.

Wilson, Colin St. John, The Design and Construction of the British Library, British Library, 1999

Further Reading 

Wilson, Colin St. John, The British Library, Wilson, Scala Arts, 2007

Wilson, Colin St. John, The Design and Construction of the British Library, British Library, 1999