The French are the masters of "grands projets". (46)They
have the cruelnes, national pride and willingness to spend that are needed for
great public works. (47)The British, on the other hand are usually
dismissed as too mean, troubled by regulations and lacking in vision, to build
anything worthwhile. But occasionally the bulldog triumphs.
Take, for example, that grandest, of grands projets, the national library.
The Bibliotheque Nationale de France. fast-tracked by President Mitterrand, was
planned and built in less than a decade. With its four 80-metre-high glass
towers, designed to resemble open books, the library was hailed as a wonder of
design and construction when it opened in 1998. (48)Its 11 million books,
protected by automatic climate control, were planned to be instantly accessible,
with the help of computerised automatic loading trains running on miles of
trains. All this, for FFr 8 billion (pounds 861 million), was hailed as
evidence that the glory of France was alive and well. The
British Library, which cost a third less, became a symbol of national
incompetence. First conceived in 1962, it. ran into trouble from the start.
(49) After three decades of bitter controversy, planning delays and money
problems, the new red-brick library, designed by Colin St John Wilson finally
opened for business in 1997. The reviews, given its troubled history, were
predictably mixed. The Prince of Wales, who had unveiled the foundation stone,
compared it to "an academy for secret police". Matters look
different today. The British Library is widely acknowledged as one of London’s
best modem buildings, a triumph of design over adversity. Those who work there
sing its praises. The Bibliotheque Nationale, by contrast, has become notorious
for its poor design and even worse construction. Its high technology search
system has. proved a nightmare. Its glass construction bakes books in summer.
Its freezing winter temperatures have provoked its 3,000 staff to strike.
(50) Conditions became so intolerable that soon after it opened several
hundred frustrated students stormed a reading room trampling library staff under
foot, Dismissed by three famous French professors as a "sinister fame", la
grande bibliotheque proves that victory does not always go to the
swiftest.