The splendid neo-gothic John Rylands Library impeded instead of welcomed: difficult to negotiate and maintain, many inaccessible areas, no visitor facilities. The library wanted to ‘unlock’ the space, and they entrusted us with finding the key.

We did so, but by the back door, in this case an existing 1970s storage facility that we replaced with a five-storey extension that transforms the whole feel and approachability of the Rylands. The extension created an unmistakeable and modern new entrance, complete with a genuinely awe-inspiring atrium, a reception, a café and a shop, plus wheelchair and buggy access, new toilets, and state-of-the-art storage facilities that improve security and open up the rest of this beautiful building for public appreciation.

With its clear glass frontage, it’s now clearly a public space. People come by. Over 80,000 visitors (up 50,000) did so the year after reopening, underlining the difference.

Time changes perceptions: state-of-the-art becomes classic, innovation becomes curiosity. But it also changes needs; ‘enabling’ a century ago can become ‘prohibitive’ today if demands have moved on: sometimes, for all its outstanding beauty, a building can become its own worst enemy, its strengths its weaknesses. Case in point: Manchester’s magnificent John Rylands Library.

Here’s a building that is one of the city’s top three, architecturally speaking: the timberwork, stonework, statuary and bronzework are thrilling, exemplary. It houses some incredible treasures, including the oldest known fragment of St John’s Gospel, dated 125AD, and is one of the finest academic libraries in Europe. The year is 2003, it is open to the public as it has been all its life… and yet no one comes, relatively speaking: just 30,000 visitors a year. Why?

The splendid neo-gothic structure resembles a church. The magnificent sandstone walls and heavy wooden front doors – closed – make for a formidable barrier instead of a welcome: there’s little to call you in. The building is impossible to negotiate with a child’s buggy or a wheelchair. Toilet facilities are out of date. There is nothing to buy and nowhere to sit down and have a drink: there’s simply not the space. Many of its most impressive parts are out of bounds, out of reach, out of sight to the public. And all this could, perhaps, be justified if the great thick walls were protecting the contents within. But no. From both a conservation and security point of view the library is behind modern standards, especially given the precious nature of what it holds. Furthermore, maintenance costs are rising continuously. Time to act.

The library wanted to ‘unlock’ the space, and they entrusted us with finding the key. The resulting project has indeed ‘unlocked’ the Rylands, but it has done so by the back door. Which is not to say quietly or unnoticed. In this case the ‘back door’ is a five-storey extension, replacing an existing 1970’s storage facility, that transforms the whole feel and approachability of the Rylands by making of itself an unmistakeable and most modern new entrance, complete with a genuinely awe-inspiring atrium, a reception, a café and a shop, plus wheelchair and buggy access and new toilets, including baby-changing facilities. With its clear glass frontage, no one could say on passing they were not aware of its role as a public space, not now. Now they are clearly welcome. And over 80,000 visitors in the first year since reopening underlines the difference it has made.

But this is a success because it is far more than a new entrance, café and shop. The project involved a thorough overhaul of the workings of the library, including an integration of a restoration project with the new building to make the transition between old and new seamless. The entrance simply introduces what is to come: the real star of the show, which is of course the old building itself. The result is – as the visitor books confirm – a ‘tasteful’, ‘sympathetic’, ‘fantastic’ juxtaposition of modern and classic, where the experience of entering through the new elevates the experience of the old.

By relocating a large part of the functional load of the library to the new building, several previously inaccessible spaces could be made available in the old building, including its fabulous reading room – now open along its full length –  and various rooms on the ground floor – now ‘unlocked’ for use as exhibition space. At the same time this meant technological advances could be made to protect and conserve the collection itself: three floors of conditioned archive storage to BS5454.2000 – some 10,000 metres of linear shelving on rolling racks – itself no mean technical achievement – safeguards its future. The new spaces and security levels comply with stringent international exhibition demands, meaning that for the first time exhibits from around the world can be brought and displayed here. A new oak-lined reading room on the top floor offers panoramic views of Manchester, and a new ‘conservation room’, equipped with the very latest restoration facilities, provides the means for ongoing maintenance of the collection.

One of the most pleasing aspects of the project is how its modernity has thrilled visitors, and far from jarring with the main protagonist, throws it into relief, introduces it, pays homage to it, whilst always maintaining a clear and unsubmissive character of its own. There are clear architectural reasons for this. From the outside, the modern building abstracts some of the original’s elements in its massing and proportion, echoing its tripartite arrangement: base, set-back two storeys, pitched roof versus glazed ground floor with white concrete casing, two middle storeys sheathed in green-patinated bronze, and a top floor set back and encased in glass. The form of the middle storeys, the patinated bronze and bookish, shelf-like design plays with the function of what lies behind: the housing of precious old collections. The use of bronze here reflects the extensive use of bronze in the original, as well as its bottle-glass windows.

This is just one example of how the resonances between the buildings are encouraged through the use of natural, homogenous ‘thick’ materials such as slate, oak, and, as mentioned, bronze, and through avoiding veneers and coatings wherever possible. The two may be a world apart in terms of design, but one always senses their relatedness.

Rylands from the noise and chaos of the street, instead more calmly and more stilled as a result of the natural ‘acclimatisation’ which is the outcome of passing first through the extension. The huge, four-storey atrium, flooded with light, reveals aspects of the original façade, the sandstone in stark contrast to the clean whites within. Scale. Expectation. The transition, almost visceral, is made across a glass and steel bridge below vaulted ceilings. From light to dark, from today to ages past, smooth to rough: theatre with bricks and glass.

While visitors are free to move as they please, the old building is revealed, or unfolds itself logically, naturally, in a way that could never have been the case before. Those attuned to the compressions and extensions, the games with space that the original plays may notice that these too are reflected in the modern. Thankfully it is of scant importance if this realisation is conscious or not. Like the collection itself – there are over a million books here – one can’t take in everything all at once. But that doesn’t stop its very presence enriching the experience. And besides, no building should yield all its secrets on the very first visit. We need an excuse to come back. And people are coming back. Rylands is more physically and intellectually open than ever.