Basil Spence's Edinburgh University Library, 1968
1968 was a remarkable year to be a student. There were student marches in Poland, West Germany, Spain, Italy, France, the US and Britain, against a backdrop of protests in favour of civil rights, black power, women's lib, environmentalism and basic freedoms.
None of that is obvious from this 1968 film of student life in Edinburgh. Shot by who else but the Depatment of Animal Genetics Research Film Unit, this is a guide to the new library for students starting out at the university.
Edinburgh darling Basil Spence's design for the library was intended to look like a bookcase from the outside. It's massive low-lying form was controversial, lying as it does on the edge of George Square. It was work here by Spence and Robert Matthew that began the active preservation of the city's Georgian heritage by the modern architecture establishment.
But again, nothing so exciting casts a shadow in this film. Instead, docile to the point of narcoleptic students file from their seminar to the library, and plod their way around all the different services on offer. The film is, frankly, dull as fuck, but is redeemed by an increasingly frenzied xylophone soundtrack, one student's fetching red coat, and glimpses of Spence's monumental building when still brand new. Worth a watch, as much for what it doesn't say, as for what it does.
None of that is obvious from this 1968 film of student life in Edinburgh. Shot by who else but the Depatment of Animal Genetics Research Film Unit, this is a guide to the new library for students starting out at the university.
Edinburgh darling Basil Spence's design for the library was intended to look like a bookcase from the outside. It's massive low-lying form was controversial, lying as it does on the edge of George Square. It was work here by Spence and Robert Matthew that began the active preservation of the city's Georgian heritage by the modern architecture establishment.
But again, nothing so exciting casts a shadow in this film. Instead, docile to the point of narcoleptic students file from their seminar to the library, and plod their way around all the different services on offer. The film is, frankly, dull as fuck, but is redeemed by an increasingly frenzied xylophone soundtrack, one student's fetching red coat, and glimpses of Spence's monumental building when still brand new. Worth a watch, as much for what it doesn't say, as for what it does.
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