A proposal by Nissen Richards Studio to refurbish and extend The Wiener Holocaust Library in London’s Bloomsbury Conservation Area has been granted planning permission by The London Borough of Camden. The scheme will see the refurbishment of part of the existing Library and the creation of a new-build, 145 sq m, two storey extension, containing a new gallery and learning space. The new architectural vision for the site will also see the creation of a ground-floor courtyard and a first-floor roof garden. Nissen Richards Studio has additionally been commissioned to create the interpretation and exhibition design for the new gallery space, along with further interpretative elements to be set throughout the existing building and new courtyard and garden spaces.
“The Library was seeking to increase learning spaces and create a new permanent gallery – in addition to its existing temporary exhibition gallery – in order to present rotating, curated displays drawn from its million-plus collection of published and unpublished works, press cuttings, photographs and eyewitness testimony” Jim Richards, Director of Nissen Richards Studio explained. “We were commissioned to re-think the Library’s overall spatial sequencing and to plan for the provision of new spaces, as well as to create the exhibition design and interpretation for the new gallery area.”
The new building will be composed of a ground floor learning space, with access to a new courtyard area abridging the existing building, plus a first floor gallery looking out onto a new roof garden on the same level. The 30-seater, ground floor learning space will be for the use of young people at GCSE level and above, as well as providing additional, flexible space for the Library. The first floor gallery, meanwhile, will feature displays that highlight key documents and objects in the Library’s collections, as well as telling the story of the Library from the 1920s in Germany until today.
The new-build extension will be topped by a series of sculpted rooflights to allow soft, north- facing daylight into the interior, whilst external cladding will feature an etched metal, abstracted pattern, taken from the concept of books, documents and shelving and inspired by the Library’s identity as a place of research and ongoing learning.
The proposed gallery spaces, material treatment and architectural features will relate directly to the work of the Library, honouring those who gathered evidence in the most difficult circumstances in order to document and record antisemitism and fascism.
New proposed works to improve the existing, four-storey Georgian terraced building are particularly focused on the entrance foyer, board room, reading room and basement, where improvement works are critical for preserving archive material. A new air-handling system will also be installed as part of the works.
Soft-toned timber and pale brick will represent the extension’s secondary design language for the interior spaces, along with limited colour interventions in tones of blue. These spaces have been designed to offer warmth, character and light and to embody a feeling of optimism, in spite of the dark and challenging nature of much of the institution’s subject matter.
Interpretation and Exhibition Design
The new gallery exhibition will seek to explain the role of the library through history: why it was set up, what acts is has performed (and continues to perform) and why it has been a historically important place. It will communicate the philosophy of the Library and connect to the Library’s core values and purpose, namely to support historical and family research and learning and engagement, teaching about the Holocaust and the Nazi era.
It will act as a place which challenges Holocaust denial and presents the public with the evidence of historic persecution and genocide, allowing the public to access critical historic resources and to deepen their understanding of this crucial historical period. Additionally, the Library will be depicted as a living and breathing archive, whose role will never be complete as it continues to collect and share the evidence of Nazi crimes and stand against persecution.
“There is a complexity to this exhibition” Pippa Nissen, Director of Nissen Richards Studio commented.
“Overall, the materiality of the objects – ‘the evidence’ – is vulnerable and can be easily damaged, forgotten, destroyed. However, the evidence that it contains cannot be forgotten and what this evidence communicates is permanent, irreversible and set in stone. The exhibition design must acknowledge the materiality of the evidence while also communicating its seriousness and undeniability, balancing aspects of ephemerality with a firm, assured base.”
Origins of The Wiener Holocaust Library
The Wiener Holocaust Library is one of the world’s leading and most extensive archives on the Holocaust, the Nazi era and related themes – and also the world’s oldest such archive and the largest of its kind in Britain.
Its origins lie in the work of Dr Alfred Wiener, who campaigned against Nazism during the 1920s and 30s and gathered evidence about antisemitism and the persecution of Jews in Germany. Dr Wiener and his family fled Germany in 1933 and settled in Amsterdam in 1934, before he made it to London. Tragically, his family remained trapped in the Netherlands, laterto be imprisoned at the Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen camps. His wife died shortly after her release from Belsen.
Later in 1934, Dr Wiener set up the Jewish Central Information Office (JCIO) at the request of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Anglo-Jewish Association. This archivecollected information about the Nazis, which formed the basis of campaigns to underminetheir activities. Following the November Pogrom of 1938, Wiener prepared to bring his collection to the UK. It arrived the following summer and is believed to have opened the day the Nazis invaded Poland.
The Library, which is a charity, moved to its current Grade II-listed building in 2011. The site’s principal leaseholder is the University of London (comprised of UCL, Birkbeck, SOAS and The Bartlett). The Library obtained a 100-year lease from the University of London and subsequently renovated the building on Russell Square, including purpose-created archive stores in the basement. The new scheme represents the first and most ambitious building works since that time.
The Library currently receives around 6000 visitors per annum to its events, exhibitions and Reading Room. Visitors include members of the general public, students from local and other universities, tourists, school students and historical researchers.
Dr Barbara Warnock, Co-Director of The Wiener Holocaust Library said:
“This exciting project will be transformational for the Library, enabling us to significantly expand our offering to visitors to our central London location in Russell Square. The beautiful new building will provide us with new opportunities to share our history and our extraordinary collections in the new exhibition space and learning space. It will strengthen our ability to bring the evidence of Nazi crimes, collected by our predecessors from the time of the Nazi rise to power, to the audiences of the future.”