St John’s College Library and Study Centre

Step-free access was ingeniously solved by reusing a hidden passage in a 'blind' wall in the ground floor of the cloister.  This led to a pivotal point in the plan where a new metal staircase was threaded through a delicate array of existing historic timbers.  The result is a carefully poised interplay between old and new.

The concept of richly ornamented stone was important to Wright & Wright from the outset, partly inspired by the original Baroque carvings in Canterbury Quadrangle and more profoundly, it also alludes to the Jungian ideas of archetypes, in that certain patterns and rhythms have deeply embedded primordial roots in human consciousness, concealing and revealing an abstract, dreamlike world. 

Entitled Stone Drawing, Heron’s carving passes across the irregular grid of the stone wall, combining the ornate and organic with the rectilinear geometry of the architecture.  The work takes advantage of the changing light on the west face, so that lines appear and recede, while shadows are cast through the day.

Kirsty Brooks, working is glass, helped Wright & Wright create spaces that are about illuminance and transparent layering.  Her work depicts the history of the College and is displayed in the refurbished Otranto Passage - the route into the new Study Centre.

A space was created between the new Study Centre and the Laudian Library to house artworks specially commissioned for the site.  The College appointed Mary Lum to engage with the Library's collections in creating an original work.

Mary Lum's tapestry which, in her own words, is based on the condition of 'in between' is located in a space which functions as a transitional or interconnecting hall between two sections of the building. The design is derived from fragments of texts in the College’s Special Collections which together create a new piece that can be read literally.

St John’s College commissioned Susan Morris to create a tapestry artwork for its new Library and Study Centre. The work ‘Silence (on Prepared Loom)’ comprises a series of six woven tapestries taking inspiration from the context of the Library, its architectural design and setting.

The tapestries were woven directly from a 50-minute sound recording made in the garden on the other side of Sprott’s Wall, a boundary shared between the garden and the library. The garden itself is visible through the single window in the second bay of the reading room, and can be regarded as part of the overall piece.

The approach to site specific artist commissioning has been led by the vision of the College’s presidents, bursars and art panel members, working with Modus Operandi, who have generously afforded opportunities for other creative minds.