Take a step into the modern world (From Gazette Series)

Take a step into the modern world

SIR - Following the recent 'discussions' in your paper over the new Dursley library, we would like to be an apparent voice in the wilderness and offer our support for the injection of modern architecture into Dursley.

A library in the 21st century is a very different building to what has traditionally been essentially a book repository. Information transfer is now the primary function of a library and the young people of Dursley are the future customers of the building.

They need a bright, open, transparent space that welcomes and encourages them - not a reproduction of the dreary, dingy bunker that is the current apology for a library in the town.

It has been pointed out that Dursley contains some beautiful, historic buildings. This is true but how should we best highlight these? Should we build fake 'olden' buildings that confuse the streetscape or should we make clear distinctions that allow us to identify and savour both classic and contemporary design?

Modern architecture can fit with and complement classic buildings - have any of your previous correspondents visited the glass pyramid at the Louvre, or the Centre Pompidou, or the Tate Modern, or the Royal Opera House? Examples where exactly the same issues were raised, and progress, rather than retrospection, was the course chosen.

Similar "glass and steel monstrosity!" objections were levelled at these buildings, echoing the comments made nearly a century before about Crystal Palace and Kew Gardens, long before Star Wars or 'intergalactic' even entered the language.

Progress is what Dursley badly needs. Let's not be fogeys - build for our children, not for our grandparents.

Andy and Jane Passingham, High Street, Cam