Maidenhead Library And Surrounding Raised Pavement And Ramps And Steps And Fountain

Maidenhead Library and Surrounding Raised Pavement, Ramps, Steps and Fountain

A public library designed between 1967 and 1968 and built from 1970 to 1973. The architects were Ahrends Burton and Koralek, with Paul Koralek as partner in charge and Gareth Wright as job architect. The structural engineers were Felix Samuely and Partners.

The building employs a reinforced concrete frame with suspended floor slabs on piled foundations. The most distinctive structural feature is a clear span space frame roof constructed from welded joints using mild steel circular hollow tubes with a maximum diameter of three inches. This roof spans 80 feet clear and measures 112 feet 6 inches overall in width, supported on eight cruciform reinforced concrete columns positioned outside the building envelope. The external cladding and garden walls are constructed in engineering brick, with brick paviours of matching colour used for the plinth, entrance ramp and fountain in the garden area.

The building occupies a sloping site, lower at the rear than at the street frontage. It follows a near-square plan arranged over three levels, with a projecting corner housing children's storytelling facilities and offices. The lower ground floor contains stacks and offices. The slightly raised ground floor accommodates the lending, music and children's libraries, exhibition space and the librarian's office. A central well with stairs on either side provides access to the first floor, which houses the reference library and meeting room. Internal finishes employ the same hard surfaces throughout, with brick staircases and balustrading rising to the first floor.

An entrance ramp leads from the street to the building's side entrance, while steps rise from a rear footpath. The plinth is chamfered and incorporates slits for bicycle parking. Large bay window elements, their tops splayed at the same angle as the space frame overhang above, create reading bays internally. Windows are painted steel with sliding opening lights in black anodised aluminium, with Beta louvres at high level. A fountain was constructed on the site of the former library.

The building's conception arose from the 1959 Roberts Report, which recommended that towns with populations under 40,000 should relinquish independent library authority status. Maidenhead, though smaller, was targeted for regional expansion and growing rapidly, and consequently secured funding for a new building. The Department of Education and Science developed the brief as part of an initiative to make libraries more welcoming to users. Plans for a new library at Maidenhead date from January 1963. The completed building holds 75,000 volumes and was constructed adjacent to the original library, which was subsequently demolished. A garden was created on that site, incorporating raised walls, built-in seating and a fountain.

The building is notable for its innovative use of a space frame to create a column-free interior and to provide clerestory lighting around the entire perimeter. The hard red brick of the lower structure provides visual weight, although it is not load-bearing. Koralek described his approach as follows: "The idea of a roof implies for me a balance of solid and void", with the deep overhang designed to appear sheltering, inviting and uninstitutional. The meticulous use of brickwork, with the plinth extending from outside through the interior, is a distinctive feature of Ahrends Burton and Koralek's work of this period and responds to the red brick character of the Victorian town. The practice achieved prominence in 1961, the year of their foundation, when Koralek won a competition for the Berkeley Library at Trinity College, Dublin. This smaller building similarly combines flexible space around fixed staircases and balconies with dramatic toplighting. The Maidenhead Library demonstrates a progression in the firm's use of materials and a greater formal variety in their 1970s buildings compared to their 1960s work.