The Waynflete Building, completed in 1964, has proved controversial since its conception. It has long been considered something of an aberration in the College’s otherwise superlative architectural estate.
After more than 60 years of wear and tear, the Waynflete Building is no longer fit for purpose.
We now have the opportunity not only to replace it with a beautiful quad that serves the needs of students in future centuries, but also to improve the public realm at the vital eastern gateway to Oxford where town meets gown.
Do you remember how we entered Oxford … and there rose Magdalen Tower … On the right, just as you come in, a block has arisen by my own old College, Magdalen. It is really terrible. I don’t know what it is; it is not quite modern, it is not quite old, and it is not in scale with anything … But there it is. The approach to Oxford in the last year ‘done in’ forever, unless they blow it up! … I am sure that the best intentions went behind that monster that has gone up as you approach Oxford, that is going to ruin it forever
Sir John Betjeman (Magdalen)
A building that would not do much credit to a warehouse on one of the finest sites in the world
A L Rowse (British Historian, 1975)
We currently house approximately 70 of around 115 first-year undergraduates in the Waynflete Building, while the remaining 45 live in houses on Longwall St and the High St. The separation of the first years from each other and from the College is far from ideal for the creation of a strong and cohesive community.
Living conditions in the new building … were cramped and noisy … By 1968 Vice-President Lloyd admitted that it had already become something of a ‘sociological problem
Magdalen College Oxford – A History
(Laurence Brockliss, 2008)
Herding freshman together, away from their seniors and without any designated space for socialising, was asking for trouble
Magdalen College Oxford – A History
(Laurence Brockliss, 2008)
I had hoped to reside within the historic College but initially was consigned to the Waynflete Building, an ironic twist as I am now a Waynflete Fellow and an avowed critic of that era in the built environments of Britain and the US, which are so devoid of the grace, charm and texture of their predecessors. It was such an insensitive experience that I wound up withdrawing from that building, climbing the steep hill to Headington most evenings, and rooming with others in a smallish house with a commanding view of the ancient University and its pastoral environs
Late Waynflete Fellow, Sandy Apgar
(Magdalen, 1965)
Our aim for the new site
We propose to house all undergraduate Freshers at the main site, so that the year group can more easily forge a strong collective sense of Magdalen identity and belonging from day one.
This will create habits of using College facilities such as Hall, the Bar, the JCR,
the library and the lawns, and making the most of living in the historic heart
of the College.
Our aim is to ensure that the new accommodation we create on the site of the Waynflete Building is so attractive that it will be a favoured choice of our senior undergraduates in the room ballot. It will offer a community of comfortable en suite rooms with window seats, magnificent views and family-style kitchens, in beautiful buildings, built for the long term, at a domestic scale, set in a riverside garden.
We are excited to share with you our plans that we are confident
will do just that.