George Forbes Building

The George Forbes Library was opened by the Governor-General Viscount Cobham in August 1960 and was designed by architects Jones, Adams, Kingston and Reynolds. A Liberal Party politician, George William Forbes was MP for Hurunui from 1908 to 1943 and Prime Minister from 1930 to 1935. The Library was so named because of Forbes’ advancement of Canterbury Agricultural College interests in the mid-1920s when plans for Massey Agricultural College were underway.

The original building was designed and built when Lincoln University had a roll of around 300 students. Initially a single-storey building, the Forbes Building was substantially extended in the decades that followed: 1975 (Library extension – architects Trengrove, Trengrove and Marshall); 1976 (Registry – architects Trengrove, Trengrove and Marshall); 1989 (North, West and East Administration wings – architects Lucking, Vial and Bellerby), and 1995 (Meeting Room complex – architects Vial and Bellerby). The 1975 extension has often been the target of criticism from an aesthetic point of view. This saw the building rise to eight floors, five of which were given over to the library book collection. The relatively small window openings were deliberate, the purpose being to protect printed matter from exposure to sunlight. From 1989 onwards the building has functioned as a home for several academic departments, Student Services, and commercial activities. The later additions and modifications have created an atrium space and areas on the first floor well-suited to displays of art works and a number of key works are now to be found on the ground and mezzanine floors.