As you head up the main shopping street in central Birmingham, New Street, you start to hit Victoria Square.
Hopefully the Christmas market is not on or you are in for a long, slow walk. You see a series of steps
surrounding the 'floosie in the jacuzzi' or rather Mistry's 'The River'. The Council House looms over the
square with grand classical themes. You eye is drawn to the left where a Greek revivalist wonder known as the
Town Hall sits. Yet something distracts you. A grey inverted ziggurat sits between the 2 classical wonders,
almost forcing them apart. As you get closer the scale starts to feel unreal. The ground floor is filled with
shops and restaurants. The enterence lies to the east in an odd annexe. As you pass through the walkway between
the shops, you look up. It is almost impossible not to. The building is hollow with light pouring through. Each
floor has windows looking into this courtyard. The walkway continues through to Centenary Square and the
hedonism of Broad Street.
This ziggurat was Birmingham's central library from 1974 until being demolished in 2013. It was designed by
John Madin and was certainly of the Brutalist style. Demolition was inevitable. The library wanted more space
and to be more welcoming. The open nature meant that it was often cold. The windows faced inwards to help
protect books and to reduce road noise. The library was built over one of the main roads through central
Birmingham and so this was a real concern. Madin had intended for a civic centre with various schools, offices,
shops and of course a pub. These were meant to be interconnected with high level walkways as all of these
schemes seemed to need in the 60s and 70s.
When I started studying in Birmingham, the library was a huge statement. It stood as a remarkable statement
that Birmingham was modern, sitting between 2 classical statement buildings. It loomed over them, showing that
change was at the heart of the city. It formed a perfect pathway between the centre and Broad Street. While
this building had ran it's course as a library, it is a terrible shame it could not be remodelled into
something else. It was a perfect shock to the senses when you first saw it. Brutalism is a controversial style
but this is mostly in how it was used for huge council estates or shopping centres. I can totally understand
the distaste caused by these. They were often neglected and required a bit of a clean up or simply just the
wrong design for the wrong purpose. Many of these are rightfully being demolished but there is a case to
preserve some examples. The inverted ziggarut was a grand statement and something which could not have been
built before concrete. I feel this would have been a perfect example to preserve.
The replacement library is a fancy affair which looks like a stack of wrapped gifts. It sits on Centenary
Square, next to a theatre and Sympthony Hall. These sit looking over the start of Broad Street almost hoping
that their aura of learning influences those off on the piss. The new library is a lovely place to read but
somewhere hard to enter. Unfortunately splashing out on the new library meant that the council was not able to
afford to keep it open for long enough hours for those paying council tax to make use of it. However, clearing
the old library meant the land could be sold off. Now, a miserable pair of gleaming glass towers sit between
the Town Hall and Council House. Occupied by a bank, they show that money reigns over culture and civic duty
when it once was knowledge.
