Architect behind controversial British Library completed final commission last year
Sir Colin St John Wilson, the architect behind the British Library, has died aged 85.
The architect, known universally as ‘Sandy’, read architecture at Oxford before working on academic buildings such as the new campus of Leicester University and plans for the Royal Holloway college in London.
However, it was the British Library that was to make up the bulk of his life’s work. From the initial feasibility study in 1962 to its eventual completion in 1997, the project was marked by extensive political infighting, budgetary wrangling, and design issues. The result initially divided critics – Prince Charles said it resembled a “secret police headquarters” – but it has now come to be seen as a modernist icon.
He was appointed chair of the department of architecture at Cambridge University in 1975 and remained in the post until 1989. His final commission was for the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, which opened in June last year.
He is survived by his architect wife Mary Jane Long and two children.
1 Readers' comment