Sad news this week to anyone that’s ever enjoyed the welcoming arms of the British Library that chief architect, Sir Colin St John (Sandy) Wilson, passed away on Monday.
Beginning his career in post-war London, he was involved at the beginning in the massive effort to help rebuild social housing in the city. It is said he told FT journalist Edwin Heathcote “we were staggering around the bomb sites with stars in our eyes”.
Considered “instrumental in the design of the most influential British housing era”, he went on thereafter to teach architecture at Cambridge and Yale. However it was the chance to build the British Library in 1962 that would eventually leave Wilson forever associated with it and form the core of his career. It took a staggering 35 years to complete with obstacles of changed briefs and funding issues to contend with.
Despite Sir Wilson’s regret that; “he had become known as a one-building architect” the British Library stands as a popular, well-used and much loved structure for many scholars and IWR readers alike. It stands a fitting monument.
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