London
Britain’s National Art Library has plans to move from the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) to the former Public Record Office in Chancery Lane. The old record office is a solid Victorian building with 240 archival strongrooms which could be converted for shelving books. Librarian Jan van der Wateren believes the move would be “a marriage made in heaven,” but most V&A curators are adamantly opposed.
The simple reason for the move is space. The National Art Library is the world’s oldest public art library, dating back to the 1830s, and it now has over one million books and periodicals and another million archival documents. These require fifteen kilometres of shelf space. New acquisitions number 15,000 a year, taking a further 225 metres of shelving, and the library is already completely full. The reading room on the first floor of the V&A seats only eighty-four readers, and at busy periods people have to be turned away.
Shortage of space means that the Archive of Art and Design is held in a separate building, Blythe House in west London. This material should ideally be housed with the main library, along with the archive of the V&A’s own acquisitions and the Arts Council Archive.
Moving the library from the V&A would release the two main reading rooms (as well as valuable office and storage space). This would not only offer additional display space, but improve public circulation on the first floor around the central courtyard. It would also make it possible to restore the original sixty-foot ceiling in the present Medieval Treasury, which in the 1960s was lowered to just eighteen feet to provide additional library storage. This would create a more dramatic entrance to the museum.
The old Public Record Office (PRO) is in Chancery Lane, just off Fleet Street and close to the Courtauld Institute. Twenty years ago a new record office was erected at Kew on the outskirts of west London, and the Chancery Lane premises were finally vacated earlier this year.
Converting the old PRO into a library would be an ideal change of use. The Chancery Lane building comprises 240 archive stores, each about eighteen-foot square and on two levels. They were made to carry heavy loads and to be fireproof—with iron doors and shelves made of slate. Using the original stores, the building would provide forty-two kilometres of shelving, giving the art library and archive space for another twenty-three years of acquisitions.
The PRO’s round reading room, almost a miniature version of that of the British Museum, would accommodate forty readers for rare books and archives. The one major new facility which would have to be built is a main reading room for 160 readers, and this is being planned as a partly sunken building on the north of the site.
The PRO’s Rolls Chapel has relics of a series of earlier chapels on the site going back to the thirteenth century. Although demolished and rebuilt in the 1890s, it is decorated with fine stained glass and would make an elegant exhibition gallery devoted to the craft of the book.
The main opposition to the Chancery Lane proposal has come from V&A curators, who make considerable use of the library and are allowed privileged access to its stacks. Despite the promise of a daily delivery service to the museum, it would be very much less convenient and make essential research work more time-consuming.
Three other options have been explored. The first is to fill in light wells in the interior of the V&A building. But this would not produce sufficient space and shelving for books and periodicals would run out after just eight years.
The second option is for the library to take over the entire Henry Cole Wing, converting the top floor into a reading room. But again storage space would be limited, although without the archive there would be shelving for another twenty-one years.
The final option is to move to a greenfield site out of central London. Although this would provide space for expansion, it would be very inconvenient for the vast majority of readers. It would cost £11.6 million (plus perhaps £2 million for land), making it well over twice as expensive as converting the PRO.
Consultants Davis Langdon & Everest have just completed a feasibility study of the options. They conclude that “in economic terms, it is clear that the PRO offers good value for money and provides enough space for the foreseeable future.” Architectural plans for the conversion are being developed by Mary Long of Long & Kentish.
The PRO building in Chancery Lane belongs to the government and the V&A has now started negotiations to take over the building for a token rent. Roger Freeman, Minister for the Public Service, recently visited the V&A to discuss the scheme and was reported to be sympathetic to the library conversion.
The National Art Library, whose budget is £1.8 million a year, is funded from the V&A’s grant-in-aid from the Department of National Heritage. Development costs of converting the PRO would be the responsibility of the V&A, but the project should be eligible for support from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The project would not only improve access to the library and care of its material, but would also ensure the preservation of an important Victorian building. Although other uses for the old PRO have been suggested, such as a hotel or barrister’s chambers, they would mean much more interference with the interior. Library use has therefore been welcomed by English Heritage and the Corporation of London.
If agreement over the building is reached with the government, planning and fund-raising would take up to eighteen months. Conversion work would take four years. V&A director Alan Borg recently warned staff that there is no long-term prospect of keeping the library in the museum, and Chancery Lane offers the best solution.
The options shelving cost
V&A infill 15km £4.5m
V&A Henry Cole Wing 31km £5.3m
Public Record Office 42km £5.5m
Greenfield site 44km £13.6m