Cities- Chichester- Festival Theatre and Library
Chichester Library. It is Grade II listed and is very nice and round.
Here is some chatter from Historic England;
'West Sussex Library Headquarters was built in 1965-6 to the designs of the county architect, F R Steele, who was succeeded in 1964 by B Peters; the engineers were Ove Arup and Partners. The building was formally opened on 24 January 1967 by Asa Briggs, Vice-chancellor elect of the University of Sussex.
The considerable expansion of library services which had started in the late 1930s, picked up pace once more after the Second World War. However with government restrictions on building, it was 1959-60 before libraries of any architectural ambition were built in significant numbers. Influenced by the modern libraries of the United States and Scandinavia, combined with better budgets and the enthusiasm of county librarians and architects, the 1960s saw a flowering of library buildings and the services they offered. County libraries were the area of greatest growth in the 1960s, and West Sussex Library is a large and impressive example. The brief was for a lending library, a reference library and reading room, a library for music and drama, and office accommodation for the county library service, including a reserve book store and facilities for its vans (which provided a mobile library service and distributed books between the outlying libraries). The building is set between the large, but concealed, bulk of county hall – a building begun before the war by C G Stillman but completed only afterwards, and the narrow, historic Tower Street, at the south end of which is the cathedral. The two-storey circular form was in part a response to this setting, but F R Steele did have a penchant for circular libraries, with more modest, single-storey, examples found at Crawley (now demolished) and Selsey (both West Sussex). The library was noted for its pioneering computer issue system, the first in Britain, and a computerised catalogue which was completed in 1973.
The nature of the library's structure and plan allows for a flexibility in its layout, which has seem some spatial divisions come and go since its opening. Broadly however, the arrangement of open shelves to the east of the building, and 'back of house' to the west, remains the same. In 2009 an extension, providing a lift, new stair, and staff room, was added to the south-west by M H Architects. This extension is excluded form the listing.'
MATERIALS: the building is formed of 72 prefabricated concrete portals erected around a central drum of exposed red bricks. Each portal is set at ten degree intervals and is exposed internally, supporting a pre-cast concrete floor slab (the first floor) and the flat roof. The roof over the central drum has a centrally radiating concertina form, built of timber covered in copper, and incorporating clerestory windows. The elevation windows are metal-framed, with dark grey opaque glass spandrel panels.
PLAN: the building is circular in plan, with a 92 foot (28 metre) diameter. The central circular drum forms a double-height staircase hall which originally contained the music and drama library (now part of the general adult lending). Set around the drum to the east is the open-plan adult lending library, and to the west is the children's library (formerly the reserve book store), flanked by the work room where staff handle incoming and outgoing books, and a lobby which gives access to the lift and stair in the extension. On the first floor are the open-plan reference, periodicals, and local studies libraries to the east, with offices, the reserve book store, and a stair and lift lobby, to the west.
The extension to the south-west, which contains the lift, a stair, and a staff room, steps out from the building and follows its circumference for approximately 60 degrees. This extension is excluded from the listing and is not to be treated as part of the listed building for the purposes of the Act.
EXTERIOR: the building's drum-like form stands on a low brick plinth, which accommodates the slight change of levels across its footprint, and forms a paved walkway around its circumference. Two steps and flanking ramps lead up to the main entrance. The building's elevation is broken down into double-height bays by the exposed outer face of the white-painted portals. The bays have segment heads, below a deep white-painted fascia. The glazing and spandrel panels are set in from the building's frame, held in a light grey painted metal framework. The first-floor spandrel panels are dark grey, their curved bottom edge providing a segmental head to the ground-floor windows below. The ground-floor windows are essentially full-height, but are broken horizontally into three lights, the glazing variously back-painted in light grey to obscure parts of the interior – this is an original feature of the building. The original entrance doors to the building were low-key side-hung doors, designed to reflect the glazing pattern of the windows so not breaking the uniformity of the elevation. The doors have been replaced with automatic sliding doors, however these have a similar glazing pattern to the originals.
INTERIOR: the building is entered from the east into a small lobby, formed of a curved screen which separates it from the open-plan library; the screen is lined in Verde Issogne marble. The library space wraps around the central brick drum, which forms the centrepiece of the interior. The drum is pierced at ground floor by five wide archways, and is lit by small triangular clerestory glazing set within the concertinas of the roof form. The inside face of the roof is lined with closely-spaced thin aluminium lathes, these have been replaced in recent years on a like-for-like basis with the originals. There is a large central pendant light, and further lighting has been added close to the roof. Around the inside of the drum is a curved stair, cantilevered from the walls, with a decorative steel balustrade. Although now covered by carpeting, the floor has a black and white geometric starburst pattern, believed to be laid in linoleum.
Outside the central drum the structural portals are expressed – the inner face of the uprights canted outwards from floor to ceiling, and the horizontals supporting the first floor and roof, canted upwards towards the drum. Non-structural walls which divide the various enclosed spaces are built below the portals; some are original, others are new, however there is no obvious visual distinction between old and new. There is a small quantity of simple original joinery.
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1425462
- accessed 14th May 2019
John Keats by local sculptor Vincent Gray.
Favourite sight of the day was the Festival Theatre. It is very nice and provided lots of wood, concrete and Verdigris statues.
Here is some more gentle chat about it,
'Chichester Festival Theatre was founded by a local ophthalmic optician and former city mayor, Leslie Evershed-Martin, following an idea he had whilst watching a television programme in 1959 about the Stratford Festival Theatre in Stratford, Ontario in Canada. His vision was for a seasonal festival of theatre to be staged in a space inspired by the revolutionary thrust design of the Canadian theatre. Working tirelessly with Chichester City Council to get its support and to find a suitable site, he motivated local individuals and businesses to raise the £105,000 needed to make his idea become a reality. The Theatre finally opened its doors in 1962.
Following the Stratford model, the architects, Phillip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, developed a brutalist theatre that arranged the auditorium around a stage that thrust itself into the centre of the audience, combining ancient Greek and Roman precedents with elements of Elizabethan theatre. When Chichester Festival Theatre opened, it was Britain's first thrust stage theatre in over 450 years. This staging was pioneered by former Royal Shakespeare Company director and Artistic director of the Stratford Festival Theatre, Tyrone Guthrie. Powell and Moya's bold design combined the functional requirements of a modern theatre within strict financial constraints in post war Britain.
It was the vision of Laurence Olivier, the first artistic director, that the theatre would produce several shows to run in repertoire sharing the same ensemble cast; and so it was the theatre opened in 1962 with a 'festival' of three shows which were to run for three weeks. Between '62 and '65 Olivier established a company of actors and other theatre practitioners at Chichester which provided the nucleus of his National Theatre Company. The founding principles of the key players who made the idea for Chichester Festival Theatre become a reality still continues to influence how Chichester Festival Theatre functions into modern day.'
https://www.cft.org.uk/about-us/history- accessed 14th May 2019.
and if you go HERE you can read more on the history of the theatre and also take part in the PASS IT ON digital archive.
Go HERE to read more about the many sculptures.
Nearly done after a very big tea of some cheesy thing and off to the train station. I liked it in here very much and the big clock on the wall. Photographs of this were hindered by children who were throwing jumpers and bags into the air. Like the Equalizer- I do not forgive.
Read more HERE about Chichester and see a picture of the station clock. I cannot find much about the station but it was really nice.
9/10 for the lovely spring weather, nice buildings, good blue bordered road signs and sculptures. Minus a point for my no clock picture that was ruined.