Flow of Time - Birmingham 2015

Descending from the bridge adjacent to The Cube along the ramp to gently arrive onto the towpath, and continue the one mile walking route that was established by the development of the Mailbox, the left bank of the Birmingham Canal Old Line, with its converted Victorian buildings, feels like walking through an old area of the city, looming up beyond the rooftops is the home of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), a distinctive barrel vault building, a former lead works artfully refurbished by Associated Architects. Glazed panels, stack bonded buff brickwork set in a Miesian black metal frame form the southern façade, backlit in a cool glow as it falls into the shadow of the setting sun, its ochre coloured Cotswold stone eastern façade retained from the original 1921 building, seamlessly integrated into the new build, giving the impression of an old building restored as opposed to façade retention to create a stage set.

Standing directly opposite on Holliday Street is the new Registry Office, a composition of planes in cream coloured terracotta rainscreen cladding, no doubt picking up from its neighbour, dark grey metal frames, seemingly intending to stand out from red of the urban plane. Walking along the towpath past the pubs and cafes situated in the Victorian canal side buildings gives an air of authenticity to the waterfront. On the opposite bank, attention is once again drawn to the Premier Inn, part of a national chain of budget hotels, situated in a five storey red brick imitation of its Victorian neighbours, demonstrates the banality of the 1980s approach to modern architecture, where in the era of post-modernism the approach was to build cheap imitations of historic buildings as opposed to developing an architecture contemporary to its time, and as a result feels like an object that is frozen in the wrong time period. The sense of displacement is further emphasized by the twenty one-storey white concrete and graphite panel composition accommodating close to four hundred apartments and hotel that is Centenary Plaza, designed by Weedon Architects as phase one of Arena Central master-planned by HOK. The contrast between these two developments themselves clearly demonstrates the limitations of the 1980s approach to city planning compared with the 2000s. Although a distant memory of passing through Birmingham on a canal boat holiday in the summer of 1986, the Premier Inn building was new, surrounded by industrial decay, the ICC and the Hyatt were concrete structures slowly emerging from the ground, placing it at the start of Birmingham’s canal renaissance.

Continuing along the towpath towards Gas Street Basin, and arriving at Warwick bar, that historically separated the jurisdiction of two canal operators, the Tap and Spile pub is situated in the former toll house, and the lock that prevented canal carriers from passing through without paying a toll, is now an open narrow channel, crossing the cast iron bridge and onto the Warwick Bar which is still a lively environment, with canal boats moored along both sides, although not operated by canal carriers, these are private house boats and hired pleasure craft. On the right hand side of the bar Gas Street Basin, the boarded up pub, the James Brindley, a venue of many enjoyable gatherings with my fellow students now stands as a sad monument to the mock Victoriana of the 1980s, its glazed atrium with barrel vault roof reminiscent of scaled down version of Paxton’s Crystal Palace, but with glazing bars in dark green. Ready to be demolished and replaced, or just waiting for a new operator to move in and revive its fortunes? Who knows?

On the left hand side, Regency Wharf, depicted by the retro painted sign on the brickwork of the former glassworks, giving the place a sense of authenticity although only applied relatively recently. The canal leads to two dead ends that are bridged by the typical brick built hump-backed bridges, one leading to what was the loading dock for the glassworks, its dock filled in and now built over with a buff terracotta, and grey steel construction that accommodates bars and restaurants, added in 2002, designed by Level 7 Architects, that partially obscures the dated red brick imitation Victorian plant room to the Hyatt Hotel. The second bridge adjacent to the James Brindley, leads to the demolition site where the Central Television Studios once were, and in the master plan for Arena Central would connect to the lake that would become an ice rink in winter, the blanked off bridge also emphasises the extent to which industry once penetrated the city.

The towpath continues beneath the inhabited bridge of Broad Street, completely surrounded high brick walls, and bursts out into the evening light of Brindleyplace, where the reflections are completely still, the lights on the suspension bridge, the people sitting at tables outside the Pitcher and Piano enjoying the evening, and at the end of this waterside vista, the NIA now branded as the Barclaycard Arena, and what a transformation! Blank white and grey panels have been replaced by glass augmented by vertical copper fins, and life! What once felt like the service entrance to the arena is now a promenade lined with bars, restaurants and creates another venue to enjoy life in the city. Standing on the promenade, looking back at along the canal with its traffic island on the junction that separates the routes that lead to Worcester passing Brindleyplace, and to Warwick and eventually London, heading off to the left. Remembering standing in the exact same place on a cold day as a first year architecture student in late 1993, the city is unrecognisable, it is difficult not to be impressed by the regeneration that has taken place in the past quarter of a century. The grass bank behind the promenade fencing now occupied by a completed Brindleyplace, the then derelict brick buildings now fully restored, and very much part of the life of the city.

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Paradise Shift - Birmingham 2015

The walk over the bridge that spans the roadworks on the inner ring road at Paradise Circus is a depressing one, site hoardings define the entrances to the Copthorne Hotel, Chamberlain House, gone are the Grapevine pub that was later named The Yardbird, and the Italian restaurant below the Library Theatre, graphics on the hoardings claim that the development is ‘History in the Making’ referring to the scheme as simply ‘Paradise’ as the traffic island that defined the ‘circus’ is thankfully being removed. Ahead the iconic inverted ziggurat John Madin’s Birmingham Central Library stands derelict, rain stained and despite campaigns by the 20th Century Society, the building was not listed and now stands awaiting its demise at the hands of demolition contractors. 

On the site hoardings are visuals of the scheme that will replace such an icon and surprise, surprise, more Grade A office space accommodated in the same blocks as proposed for Arena Central, it is as though the less vibrant elements of Brindleyplace are being replicated across the city, transforming the civic heart into another office district driven by net-lettable area and vacant office space, augmented by a few expensive restaurants and exclusive apartments, throwing out the baby with the bathwater perhaps? Universally loved it was not, but a destination in the civic heart of Birmingham it was, with a strong identity that personifies the design of late 20th Century. As a library it worked just fine, it needed some of the circulation elements updating, it needed a good clean, to return it to its 1973 glory, in a similar way to London’s South Bank Centre, together with some intelligent landscape improvements, this could easily retain its status as an icon in the civic centre of Birmingham. The reality is that the library has moved out to the hugely expensive Mecanoo decorated box that effectively does exactly the same thing. The question is what to do with Madin’s Library if it were retained, based on its location alone, adjacent to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Gas Hall, it would make an ideal home for modern artworks, a permanent exhibition of works associated with the Manzoni plan for the modern Birmingham, the models of the unrealized 1930s Civic Centre, that resulted Baskerville House being the only completed element, that was listed and refurbished. The unrealised Madin plan of the 1960s, with the central Library as its surviving element, would make an ideal location to exhibit the heroic visions of the future, along with all the public art that was commissioned at the time, what happened to the relief sculpture in the banking hall of the Lloyds at the base of the Rotunda? What happened to the relief sculptures that were displaced by the development of Martinau Galleries? All these traces of the identity of the city swept away in the name of commercial development. The central library could be the centerpiece of the new development, commercial drivers accommodated in a mixed-use landmark tower in the manner of Piano’s ‘The Shard’ at London Bridge. No need for costly demolition, costly in both financial and environmental terms. 

Walking through the internal street that passes beneath the inverted Ziggurat, gone are all the meeting places: Wetherspoons, Raphaels, McDonalds, that formed a central part of the lives of so many students, along with recitals at the Conservatiore or live music events at X-posure Rock Café in the adjacent blocks that are soon to be demolished. Looking up through atrium of the library that is now an empty shell, bizarre steel trusses define what were once the retail units that were added when the Paradise forum underwent a facelift removing all the plastic stage set resembling Roman ruins. Now everything is locked away behind site hoardings claiming that history is in the making when in reality it is once again being swept away, this time to become an anonymous new pedestrianized street passing between office blocks that could be situated just about anywhere.

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Retrofitting Infrastructure - Birmingham 2015

It is July 2015 and almost 2 years since my previous visit to the city and it is a city that is largely in bits, from massive reorganisation in the centre, to retrofitting infrastructure it is a city undergoing open-heart surgery on a vast scale. Outside the confines of the New Street Station and Grand Central redevelopment, slow movement until the bus finds its allocated slot along Corporation Street, and the final lurch to a stop is no longer a way of arriving into Birmingham, still in the rain, Corporation street is closed to traffic, tram lines are being reinstated in the street surface which is a welcome sight, a sense of rediscovering what was lost in the 1960s.

Crossing Corporation street and passing the end of what was once Martineau Square, Commercial Union House still sits above a retail podium, clad in yellow concrete and blue glazing frames seemingly dominated by a singe retailer ‘Poundland’, the development branded as Martineau Galleries, replaced the rain soaked precinct, and the deserted plaza, first experienced on arrival in Birmingham in 1993, which is no longer deserted, it is dominated by a busy and now well established Sainsbury’s store in the city centre with its plaza surrounded by coffee shops partly covered by Teflon coated fabric canopies that arrived in the 2000s in stark contrast to both the concrete environment of its predecessor and in urban terms to the big box out of town retail park that is so prevalent in the UK.

Walking down the pedestrianised Union Street that crosses Corporation Street, and heading down to High Street or is the pedestrianised surface between Frankfurt’s Konstablewache and Hauptewache with a glass tower at the end resembling the Rotunda? Part of the pristine concrete paved surface has been displaced by site hoardings and cabins, notices on the cabins talk of Birmingham becoming a sustainable city, and in the trench in the ground below the surface a district heating main is being installed, part of the Birmingham District Energy Scheme, a tri-generation project producing heat, power, and chilled water, which aims to reduce CO emissions by 60%.

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