Vote for Britain's best new building: Weston Library
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Riba Stirling Prize 2016 shortlist: Weston Library, Oxford
The Weston Library is one of six UK buildings up for the 2016 Riba Stirling Prize for architecture. A select line-up of judges will decide the winner, but the BBC, in partnership with Riba, is inviting you to vote for your favourite. Find out about the other buildings here, external.
What is it and where?
A restored and extended Grade II listed building at Oxford University, originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, built in the 1930s and known as the New Bodleian Library. The remodelled and renamed building, still used as a library but with added exhibition and teaching space, was designed by WilkinsonEyre, external.
How much did it cost?
£50m, although the total project cost is reported to have been about £80m.
What was the vision?
The New Bodleian was more of a storage facility than public building and, with some of its books now kept elsewhere, the Weston opens up the space to provide more public access and show off the central bookstack. The university says the design aimed to respect the building's heritage while modernising its infrastructure and providing better facilities for students and researchers, as well as greater opportunities for outreach to the wider community.
What have people said about it?
"A fine attempt to ensure the repository of books survives into the future." Edwin Heathcote, Financial Times, July 2016
"The dreary old New Bod has become the Mod Bod. For the first time, shafts of natural light fall into the central core and the reading rooms and there is a strong sense of a building that now breathes easily, rather than holds its stale bookish breath." Jay Merrick, i, March 2015
"The Weston is a competent and professionally committed reworking of a historic building, albeit with some awkwardness in its spatial arrangements, but without the spark that you would hope for in a Stirling prize winner." Rowan Moore, Guardian, July 2016
Explore the other buildings on the shortlist
BBC Riba Stirling home page, external
Find out more about the BBC Riba Stirling Prize partnership, external
Credits: Video by Richard Kenny and Dave O'Neill. Animation by Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
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