In April 1998 the Chinese government announced an open competition to design ‘one of the best arts palaces in the world’. The proposed development incorporated a 2200-seat opera house, a concert hall, a national theatre and mini-theatre, and a public park. The selection process consisted of five different briefs in five stages over a 16-month period. Terry Farrell & Partners reached the fifth-stage submission along with architect Paul Andreu, who emerged as the final winner.

Terry Farrell & Partners initial submission was a colourful low-rise box, organised within a nine-square grid, each section of which was dedicated to a separate but linked function. The three sections facing the main, north elevation were connected to form an entrance and foyer space. The three cultural sections, each a different colour, housed the theatre, concert hall, and opera house. The three southern sections were given over to back-of-house facilities.

The scheme went through several revisions. In the first scheme a large foyer was to be clad with screens which visualised performances happening in the main auditoria. In the second revision, a crystal wall was inserted in the north elevation of the building to provide increased permeability between the performance spaces and the street. During the third stage revision, the client wanted more references to classical Chinese traditions, and so the fly towers of the opera house and theatre were positioned beneath two saucer like roofs to provide an appearance of weightlessness. During the final submission revision phase, the site itself was moved from Tian’anmen Square to a larger but less prominent area 70 metres behind the Great Hall of the People. Along with the change of site came the removal of an earlier height restriction and less emphasis on Chinese tradition. The final submissions retained the transparency of the original concept, as well as an aspiration for the building to harmonize with the rest of the city, but was given greater solidity and a more dramatic roofline.

A collection of working drawings for stages of architectural project. They are assumed to consist of tender and/or construction plans, sections and elevations with associated revisions. This file has not yet been catalogued at item level.

The Beijing railway station is a dynamic new landmark station that helped transform Beijing into the global metropolis for Olympics Games held in 2008. It is a fully integrated multi-modal transportation hub that serves as a “Gateway” to the capital and a vital link in China’s new highspeed intercity network. An oval-shaped station was designed by the British architecture firm of TFP Farrells in collaboration with the Tianjin Design Institute The design strategy also incorporates separate zones catering to different types of vehicular traffic including area for underground basement car-parking spaces, taxi drop-off bays, taxi pick-up bays with queuing spaces and bus spaces making the station as a comprehensive transport hub.

Model of external facade of Beijing South Station, Beijing China, showing some of the surrounding connecting roads and landscape features made from thin plastic, encased in a detachable clear acrylic box casing. Dimensions of height, width, depth in centimetres: 61 x 56 x 30

This series comprises correspondence sent to other members of the Bell and Richmond families but which was held alongside Charles and family's papers. The sub-series are as follows:

CPT/6/1 - Letters to Hugh Bell and Florence Bell nee Olliffe from and about Mary Katharine Trevelyan nee Bell CPT/6/2 - Letters to Elsa Richmond nee Bell from Mary Katharine Trevelyan nee Bell CPT/6/3 - Letters to various Bell family members from Mary Katharine Trevelyan nee Bell

Further correspondence from members of the Bell family can be found in this collection at CPT/2/5, CPT/2/6 and CPT/2/7.

The papers and photographs of Gertrude Bell mainly consist of the letters Gertrude Bell sent home to her family whilst on her travels, of the diaries she kept when abroad, and the photographs taken whilst she was away.

The papers consists of sixteen thousand letters, sixteen diaries, seven notebooks and forty-four packets of miscellaneous material; whilst the photographic collection is about 7000 in number, and consists of photographs taken by her between c.1900-1918. Those of Middle Eastern archaeological sites are of great value because they record structures which have since been eroded or, in some cases, have disappeared altogether, while those of the desert tribes are of considerable anthropological and ethnographical interest.

Her competence as a field archaeologist and photographer means that the papers are indispensable for archaeological research of parts of the Middle East.

The items in the Bell Miscellaneous Papers contain material relating to Bell's work and travels, including contemporary articles, notes by Bell on various topics (archaeological sites, Arab tribes, etc.), letters concerning the publication of Bell's letters by Lady Richmond and letters to and from Gertrude Bell, maps and plans, literary manuscripts, lecture notes and copies of letters from Gertrude Bell held elsewhere. There is also a series of the letters known as the Doughty-Wylie letters, 1913-1915. These are the letters between Gertrude Bell and Charles Doughty-Wylie, an army officer with whom Bell was in love. The letters were returned to Gertrude Bell after his death at Gallipoli in 1915.

Books on Arabic and Persian languages, and on the history and antiquities of Arabia, Iraq and the Near East that formed part of Gertrude Bell's working library.