Image:Artist’s impression of the new British Library extension, featuring visitors exploring the site and surrounding space.
New development at St Pancras will add 100,000 sq ft of public space, including expanded galleries and a centre for commercial science, also providing £23m for local affordable housing.
The British Library has announced a £1.1bn development of the Library’s St Pancras site.
Funded by Japanese real estate developer Mitsui Fudosan’s subsidiary SMBL, the development will see the addition of new exhibition galleries, event spaces and new learning, business and innovation facilities.
The new exhibition galleries will double the size of the Library’s existing gallery space, which it said will enable “greater interaction with the national collection”.
Approximately 100,000 sq ft (9,290 sq m) of new public space is to be added. It will consist of expanded spaces for the Library’s business support services, a learning centre, a multi-use foyer space, and new entrances.
The Library and SMBL development will be a “centre for commercial science, data and life sciences”, it said, “supporting the advancement of science and innovation by forging new connections and facilitating new partnerships between the collection, expert staff and institutions in the area.”
A £23m contribution towards affordable housing in the local area is part of the £1.1bn funding. The development is also expected to provide workspaces and ‘incubator desks’ within the Library’s new business spaces, new access routes connecting Somers Town and St Pancras, new community garden on Ossulston Street co-designed and managed by local people.
Culture, Science and Technology Minister Sir Chris Bryant called the plans an “ambitious transformation”.
“I look forward to seeing how this major development will benefit the local community and beyond, supporting growth and innovation.”
Rebecca Lawrence, Chief Executive of the British Library, said the plans will “open up the Library even further, creating an expanded national library with state-of-the-art new spaces, harnessing the power of collaboration to build a new public realm linking communities and the Knowledge Quarter and deliver significant investment in the UK”.
