Oxford Libraries Architecture
Geoffrey Tyack author Dan Paton illustrator
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Bodleian Library
Published:26th Jun '25
Should be back in stock very soon
The libraries of the University of Oxford and its colleges are among the most splendid, but also the least-known, buildings in the city. Spanning over 800 years of architectural design and taste, nowhere else boasts such a wealth of libraries in so compact an area.
While for centuries, Oxford’s libraries were repositories of knowledge in the form of manuscripts and printed books, to be consulted only by scholars, today they serve both the advancement of learning and the teaching needs of thousands of undergraduate and postgraduate students. Over the years, Oxford’s libraries attracted wealthy donors, some of whom, like John Radcliffe, gave generously to the provision of impressive and architecturally innovative buildings to house the books. These buildings are still among the most impressive features of Oxford’s architectural landscape, helping to define its visual identity. Architectural styles range from medieval wooden stalls to the asymmetrical stainless steel and glass of the twenty-first century, and notable architects include Sir Christopher Wren, Nicholas Hawksmoor, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, Sir Edwin Lutyens, Arne Jacobsen and Zaha Hadid.
With exquisite, specially commissioned photography, this profusely illustrated book invites readers through the doors of over fifty beautiful and iconic libraries, revealing how they are steeped in history, learning and cultural change.
This book is full of magic.
-- Richard Lofthouse * Off the Shelf *THIS is a sumptuous book, full of insight and lavishly illustrated with brilliantly evocative photographs by Dan Paton. I have rarely seen library interiors, usually fusty, brown shadowed places, look so fresh and engaging.
Geoffrey Tyack’s text, as one would expect from an Oxford academic, is meticulous in its scholarship, but effortlessly accessible, with passages of delight in the buildings he is describing.
[Geoffrey] Tyack is today the leading authority on [Oxford] city’s architecture...he approaches
these libraries as an historian rather than a critic, expertly guiding the reader through stories that
are far more complicated than he makes them seem.
...this is a book of both words and images,
and Tyack’s lucid prose finds a match in Paton’s magnificent
photography. Artfully composed so as to show the
stained oak shelves of older examples and the whitewashed
walls of the modern to their best advantage, Paton’s
photographs bring vividly to life spaces that are in
many cases completely inaccessible to tourists.
Gorgeously produced by the Bodleian’s own imprint, this celebration of some of the country’s most beautiful repositories of learning will...make a handsome addition to any library shelf.
-- William Aslet * Timeless temples of the written word *...a rewarding look and read, a fitting tribute to the architectural splendour of Oxford’s libraries but also a genuine contribution to library history there. We will enjoy it and learn from it.
-- Jeremy Knight * Book RevieISBN: 9781851246052
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
336 pages