‘Where are the brilliant new buildings in Bristol?’

My heart sank when councillors refused to grant planning permission for the University of Bristol’s flagship new library on Woodland Road.

For once, here was a major building in Bristol that was not a big glass box.

Granting it planning permission would have been a signal that we were not stuck in the past. That eye-catching buildings such as this had a place on our skyline.

But the decision taken by councillors sitting on the development control committee was that the £100m library’s design and impact on the surrounding area were unacceptable.

There is still hope, however, that the building could still be constructed.

Because the councillors’ decision was contrary to the recommendation of officers to approve, a report has to come back to the next development control meeting with suggested reasons for refusal that could withstand a planning appeal likely to be submitted by the university.

Ambitions for the university’s new library comes at a time when a lack of funding for libraries across Bristol means that opening hours have been slashed.

So it is refreshing to see that plans for the Woodland Road library are for much of it to be open to the public, not just restricted to the student community.

“The NUL (new university library) will be a new cultural destination for the city of Bristol,” says its website.

“The ground floor of the library will be fully open to the public and is designed to be accessible to all. It will welcome students, staff and Bristol’s communities by opening up exhibition spaces and the University’s accredited museum and archive services, including the renowned Theatre Collection and world-class Special Collections.”

The new library would be built on the corner of Woodland Road and Elton Road, currently the site of a former hotel, the Hawthorns – photo: Martin Booth

The new library building is14,000sqm in size with a stepped design that is initially three storeys tall and rises to seven-storeys – image: HawkinsBrown & Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects

Plans for the library also include a new civic square between the new library and the refurbished Senate House – image: HawkinsBrown & Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects.

There is no doubt that the proposed building would dominate its local area. But this is a building designed to house approximately 420,000 books, 70,000 journals and around 2,000 new study seats. Of course it’s going to be big.

At the heart of the university campus, the new library needs to show the university’s ambition to be a world-leading institution.

Bristol mayor Marvin Rees recently said that the city might soon outgrow the city council. Let’s hope that the refusal to grant planning permission for this major project is not a sign that the University of Bristol is outgrowing the city.

One of the councillors who refused permission for the library was Richard Eddy, who in June 2020 called Edward Colston “a hero” and in 2001 was forced to resign after keeping a golliwog as a mascot in the Conservative Party’s group office in what was then the Council House.

Is this the person we want taking decisions that will affect Bristol for years to come?

The building has been designed by a collaborative team formed by Schmidt Hammer Lassen, Hawkins/Brown and BuroHappold – photo: University of Bristol

Just over the road from the current site of The Hawthorns on which the new library could be built is Tyndall Avenue, a jumble of oversized university buildings seemingly thrown together at random.

The new library aims to “step up the site creating a transitional building between Elton Road and Tyndall Avenue”.

But its eye-catching design within a Conservation Area has evidently been one its downfalls, despite buildings of extremely questionable architectural merit given permission to be built in just as significant areas of Bristol in recent years.

Take for example Totterdown Reach on Bath Road, which includes a 15-storey tower block granted permission despite claims it breached Bristol City Council’s own planning policies.

The Totterdown Reach scheme was granted planning permission in 2019 – CGI: Hadley Property Group

Or Castle Park View, dominating one corner of Castle Park and sightlines from across the city centre.

375 new homes, within a structure book-ended by a 26-storey tower and a 10-storey block – photo: Martin Booth

Or the nearby Assembly building on Temple Way overlooking the Floating Harbour and just yards away from the historic St Philip & St Jacob Church, which will be a new regional headquarters for BT.

Construction of the 13-storey waterfront development for BT is currently underway, with the work due to be completed in 2022 – CGI: Assembly

Where are all the brilliant new buildings in Bristol?

All too often we seem content with identikit glass boxes and when presented with a genuinely exciting new proposition, we have looked a gift horse in the mouth.

“I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but with excess massing, it does remind me of the words of Prince Charles who talked about plans as being a monstrous carbuncle,” said Eddy in the meeting in which the university’s library was refused planning permission.

Well, as a point of order: a carbuncle is a cluster of boils. So it is wrong to describe this one standalone building as a carbuncle. But then subtlety is not Eddy’s strongpoint.

This new library should have been approved if only councillors could have shown the same ambition and forward thinking as university bosses and their architects.

I want Bristol to develop. But I also want consistency.

We can be fond of what our city used to look like once upon a time and get misty-eyed at sepia-tinted photos from the good old days.

But we must not stay in the past. Let’s allow architects to think outside the typical big glass boxes and allow Bristol’s skyline to be the envy of the world.

Main image: University of Bristol

Read more: Bristol University’s nine-storey building branded ‘monstrous carbuncle’