The rebuilding of the University creating what we now know as Old College started
in 1789, the year of the French revolution and it finished in about 1830. The final act
completing the exterior as we see today was the addition of the dome for the tercentenary
of the University in the 1880s. Old College is very much a building of two halves and
it was designed to be such. It has the grand side for display, with the opulent upper library
hall, the very grand staircase up to it. And the other half is the functioning teaching
part, which was always built to be utilitarian. We know that over the years a somewhat higgledy-piggledy
group of buildings developed creating what we see as a rather complicated building today
and not necessarily a more successful one in terms of educational function. Features
familiar to generations of law students in the building are of course the rather wonderful
cantilevered staircases, one designed by Robert Adam and a matching one by William Playfair
and one can notice that there has been a developing an ever greater meniscus curve on the stairs
as people go up and down. We are of course just custodians of this building.
We are passing through its history so what's really important is we get this refurbishment
right and I think we have the architects who are going to do that.
Well, it's an extraordinary privilege to be working on a building like this and to be
imbuing that building with a future which is relevant to future generations. So this
is a very interesting coming together of our strengths in education and in the conservation
of historic buildings.
At the start of the refurbishment project
I said to the architects that my vision for the School, as Head of School at that point,
was that the refurbishment should make the building both awe inspiring but also inclusive
and welcoming. Our challenge is to unpick two centuries of
piecemeal change and create a series of teaching spaces, seminar spaces, academic offices,
a new library and importantly a social hub in the centre of the School to create ideal
accommodation for the School of Law in the 21st century.
One of the most important things for me is that students will be at the heart of the
building. The social space will be at the hub of this building and that for me is really,
really important. The other thing is that our law library is also going to be linked
to the School and in the School. The law library is the intellectual lifeblood of the School
and it's where staff and students develop ideas and that's also going to be reimagined
in a wonderful way. I love the idea that the octagonal lecture
theatre is being preserved but then that it's being mirrored in the new library.
Until you actually look at what's being planned you don't realise how maybe the shortcomings
of what's here and we all look nostalgically on the law library as that was where we spent
a lot of time but actually what's being proposed is just fantastic.
The idea of keeping what's really important in the Law School which is this sense of history
and continuity and linkage with these wonderful people who went before is very important.
Well all buildings are cultural artefacts, so we have a duty to reveal, enhance and conserve
listed structures of this sort. But at the same time I think it's important that listed
buildings have a future life and that means introducing often change, but change which
is appropriate and doesn't undermine the historic significance of the building. Fundamentally
we want the building to be fully accessible and so one of the major interventions we're
proposing is to introduce a new stair lift core in the heart of the building, which for
the first time will make all the levels of the building from Chambers street to the top
universally accessible. So the essence of the project really is to make the building
physically accessible and intellectually accessible. We didn't want to have a corporate feel which
is like many other Law Schools. We didn't want the students to feel like they were working
in a law firm when they were here because we want them to embrace the vision that this
is a great, historic, civic institution. So the new development is really exciting
and as law students we were consulted throughout, especially with all the new social spaces.
I'd like to think that we had an impact on getting those in there.
It means more open space for students to work, it means more seating room. There are a lot
of students here so it's great and accommodating. We're starting to see the interior change,
they're starting to remove everything. They're going to pretty much gut the entire wing of
the student section of Old College and completely redevelop it into something modern and new
and I think that's a great change. I think at the end of that process we will
be in a much better position to be the most attractive place that we can be for everybody
with whom we interact, with the public locally, our students, our staff at all levels very
importantly, our visitors and our researcher communities.