8 0 0 2 r e t s a E 5 1 e u s s I The magazine of Corpus Christi College Cambridge The Library Courtt The arrchiittectts’’ viiew Cookss’’ Lectturre New Zealland Reuniion opens . pages 4-6 pages 8--12 page 23 pagess 24--25 THE LIBRARY COURT PROJECT SPECIAL EDITION Welcome As we go to press, the College is delighted to announce the election of Stuart Laing, currently Contents Her Majesty's Ambassador to Kuwait and Old Member (m1967), as Master from 1st October 3 Welcome 2008, following the retirement of Professor Liz Winter, Development Director Oliver Rackham FBA. Corpus is grateful to 4-6 The library Court Opens Professor Rackham for his outstanding service as Master, and looks forward to welcoming Stuart 7 Iwona Krasodomska-Jones and Sibella Laing back to the College. See the Luiseach Nic Eoin website for biographical details and more 8-12 The architects’ view information. A profile of Stuart Laing will follow Clare Wright,Wright & Wright in the Michaelmas edition of the Pelican. 13 Blake Hansen Kate Rosin This issue of the Pelican focuses on the new Taylor Library and the student centre. These buildings, planned and awaited for 6 years, opened their doors 14-15 Sam Hindes at the end of January and now it is hard to remember what life was like without them. An official opening is still to come, but from the first moments 16-17 MCR Comment Geoff Belknap the doors opened, the library and bar have been in constant use. Students, Fellows, staff and visitors embraced the space and vastly improved facilities 18-19 Lida Kindersley immediately. Christopher de Hamel, Fellow Librarian, talks about the 20-21 The Corpus clock ‘myopic’ perspective of the seemingly long time taken to build the library against the centuries of the College’s existence and indeed, in terms of 656 22 Beldam Dinner years, it passed in a flash. 23 The Cooks’ Lecture We acknowledge with gratitude the many donations from Old Members that 24-25 New Zealand Reunion made the new library and centre possible. In particular, Dr John Taylor (m1956), Honorary Fellow and benefactor after whom the library is named, 27 Invitation to Old Members gave the principal gift towards the library. Dr Taylor has also donated an 28 Dr Peter Raymond Lewis extraordinary clock which he designed and which will be installed over the summer in the space that was the entrance to the NatWest Bank. Mrs Mary Editor: Liz Winter Insall, widow of Dr John Insall (m1950) gave a large gift in memory of her Managing editor: Latona Forder-Stent Assistant editor: Lucy Gowans husband and this is commemorated by a carved stone which is laid in the floor inside the main lobby. The Worshipful Company of Girdlers which Photography: Dennis Gilbert (front cover) sponsors a student from New Zealand each year, also made a large donation Tim Clark (portrait of Liz Winter) Library Court Project to the library, and the seminar room is now named Girdlers’ Room in Andisheh Photography appreciation of their extraordinary generosity. (Andisheh Eslamboli, m2000) Peter Cook, Andrew Houston, Brian Cameron,Gerard Duveen, The many Old Members – almost 600 in all – who made donations to the new Marina Frasca-Spada and Jan Leaver library and centre and to the Parker Library, which is being expanded as a Stills Photography (John Taylor portrait and Peter & Joyce Lewis) result of the Taylor library being built, are named in the Book of Benefactors. Samantha Sparke (Beldam Dinner) This is being made in the Conservation Centre and will go on display in a Manni Mason Photography specially made cabinet, donated by our former Master, Professor Haroon (Cooks’ Lecture) Lucky Tran (MCR BBQ) Ahmed who was so instrumental in driving the library court project forward. Development Office Corpus Christi College, Cambridge CB2 1RH Tel: 01223 339731 Fax: 01223 337014 Email: [email protected] www.corpus.cam.ac.uk Produced by Cameron Design & Marketing Ltd www.cameronacademic.co.uk TThhee LLiibbrraarryy CCoouurrtt In 1867 the building became the London County Bank, with applied for Lottery money to construct an adjacent neo-gothic house for the bank manager, an entirely new and secure Parker opens afterwards merged into a single building and reformed as Library elsewhere and it was turned opens down. That was a pivotal moment in the National Westminster Bank. In early 2005, the bank’s lease expired and the College took the property back into recent College history. The subsequent its own use, for the purpose of creating a library. A site resolution to continue regardless and by Dr Christopher de Hamel which has served Roman settlers, Anglo-Saxon undertakers, to raise money independently was Elizabethan revellers and earnest Victorian bankers, is now controversial, to say the least, for one DURING EXCAVATIONS FOR THE NEW setting out on a new journey, perhaps the longest of all, as faction deplored the proposed a working library for Corpus Christi College. abandonment of Wilkins’s finest TAYLOR LIBRARY A FEW PIECES OF ROMAN POTTERY WERE FOUND, SUGGESTING The project is a thoroughly satisfactory result of breaking a deadlock which had OCCUPANCY OF THE SITE LONG AGO. IT greatly exercised the College in the WAS LATER PART OF THE CHURCHYARD OF 1990s. Since 1929 the student library had been on the ground floor beneath ST BENE’T’S CHURCH, BUILT IN THE EARLY the Parker Library on the southern side ELEVENTH CENTURY, AND SEVERAL MEDIEVAL of Wilkins’s New Court. Some of the most valuable and vulnerable medieval SKELETONS EMERGED TOO FROM THE manuscripts in existence were stored DIGGINGS, AND A GRACEFUL TUDOR JUG. upstairs immediately above the Butler Library, an articulation of cramped rooms which were open for 24 hours a day and were unsupervised at night. The risks of accidental fire, especially, were too great for comfort. The College The Pelican Easter Term 04 05 interior while another faction could see no merit in spending millions of pounds on an apparently elitist asset which few members of College ever used. In April 2001 the Governing Body voted for a change of plan, which was regarded as a victory by all sides. This was to create a new student library instead (placating the liberals, with student Iwona Krasodomska-Jones interests at heart), which, in turn, would vacate space for a secure vault and rare books reading room on the ground floor (pleasing the conservatives, for whom Wilkins’s Parker Taylor Librarian Library was a precious and historical setting). Money already raised for saving the Parker Library will now secure its future, as safely as ever envisaged in the Lottery application, At the end of January this year, the project but in its old room and at a fraction of the cost. It was a satisfying piece of diplomacy, was finished and we opened the door to skilfully steered through its various committees, at least in part, by the then Master, the readers. Students, Fellows, College Professor Haroon Ahmed. staff and hundreds of visitors, photographers, Old Members, other In February 2002, the Governing Body opted for locating the new student library in the bank librarians, have already flocked to see the site. Like a conjurer with perfect timing, Dr John C. Taylor, inventor and Old Member of the most modern library in Cambridge. I College, pledged a large proportion of the estimated cost of the library. Architects were have been overwhelmed by the positive appointed and preliminary work began almost at once. The bank building was vacated on remarks and compliments I’ve received. schedule, and construction started. In the long view of things – we are speaking of a site During our informal opening something with 2000 years’ occupancy, owned by Corpus since the 1360s – a few years here or there happened which made me feel we must are nothing. From the myopic perspective of the College staff and students on the ground, have got something right. Seven minutes however, the project seems to have lasted for a lifetime. The whole building has been after the students came in to their new hidden behind dark street hoardings and under scaffolding, subjected to industrial noises library they were already making use of that would have frightened even Dante, for an entire generation of undergraduates. the new desks, connecting their laptops, books and notes in use. It is sometimes said that the most expensive sentence in the English language is ‘While we are about it.’ The creation of a new Library Court seemed an opportunity for undertaking SIX YEARS AGO I HAD AN INTERVIEW FOR THE Someone wrote to me after visiting; “You other long-cherished projects, such as creating a new student bar and common-room BUTLER SUB-LIBRARIANSHIP IN CORPUS. I WAS have such a nice new library, you must be beneath, and Fellows’ rooms and offices above, which, in turn, engendered unexpected ASKED WHETHER I WOULD LIKE TO BE PART OF very proud of it. Your library is so tasks, such as underpinning the medieval stonework of the north-west corner of Old Court, THE NEW LIBRARY STEERING COMMITTEE… beautiful it is like a piece of jewellery. It for its original builders were found to have compromised on the foundations, doubtless must be one of the most beautiful under pressure from an impatient College in the fourteenth century. Of course, I agreed. It sounded as though it was an extremely libraries in Cambridge.” It is, and I am exciting proposition and I looked forward to being part of it. very proud of it. Quite suddenly, on a gently raining day in late January 2008, the scaffolding came down and the students were let in.