Come opening day, Sandy was close to tears as, one after the other, people came up to him to offer their congratulations. And these were not politicos and hacks, but writers and readers - the very folk who had so vigorously campaigned to stay in their old Round Reading Room at the British Museum. Then came that moment, in the middle of Chris Smith's pedestrian peroration, when the mere mention of Sandy Wilson's name was enough to conjure up applause - who cares if it was started by the president of the RIBA? Well, I thought, remembering how architect Jean Nouvel had been booed offstage at the opening production of his Lyons Opera House, it seems there are compensations for being unfashionable.

It's another case of the evils of short-term thinking. At intervals the Treasury tried to save a pathetically small amount of money - and by causing delays ensured that it ended up spending far more. At intervals, various public figures with an eye to the main chance rushed to condemn an architecture they had not even seen. But all the short-termists have finally been trounced by the sheer quality of Sandy's British Library. He designed it to last 250 years. We're only one year into that, and already people are forgetting all the troubles he's had. They won't forget him, though. Am I dreaming, or are we seeing virtue rewarded for a change?

Sandy has a mischievous streak in him that no amount of hammering by bureaucrats has subdued. Please note that he has installed Charles's 1982 foundation stone at eye level right by the main entrance gates, where no-one can possibly miss it. This is one architect who deserves all the applause he gets.

Louis Hellman's view