Architects have poured scorn over Rogers Stirk Harbour and Partners’ controversial designs for a major extension to the grade I-listed British Library - with one likening it to an “acoustic cover version of a high-tech power ballad”.

Plans for the scheme, which are due to be lodged in May, will see a huge block at least 11 storeys built next to and partially attached to the landmark existing building at St Pancras which opened in 1997 after two decades of struggle and listed in 2015. It will include 72,000sq m of office space, 10,000sq m of library facilities and new premises for the Alan Turing Institute.

But its scale and proximity to Colin St John “Sandy” Wilson and MJ Long’s seminal library complex have ruffled many architects’ feathers, with Patrick Lynch, director of Lynch Architects, calling the designs “bloody awful”.

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