James Gibbs (1682–1754)
The publick building at Cambridge in perspective
Cambridge,1722

The idea of the Library occupying the Regent House was first mooted in 1717, but if this was to succeed, the University’s organising body would need to find new spaces beyond the walls of its medieval heart. The plan suggested by James Burroughs, implemented by James Gibbs–who also designed the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford–included a new Senate House on the right, a new home for the Royal Library in the centre, and an administrative building for the University to the left adjacent to King’s College Chapel. The Senate House was begun in 1722 and completed in 1730, but the remainder of Gibbs’s plan went unrealised.

UA P.XXIX.5