Driving the Birmingham Inner Ring Road, known as the Queensway, for the first time is a terrifying experience, always in the wrong lane, not sure which exit to take and the signs always give the direction ‘All Other Routes’, which is not the most helpful. Landmarks of the city become obscured as the road dips into cuttings lined by red and blue panels to emerge once again into the four lanes of traffic, cars crossing paths, the process repeats until the landmarks and exits correspond.
The city designed for the car driver, has its own landmarks, although not exactly as glamorous as the Monaco Grand Prix. Travelling along the Aston Expressway from Spaghetti Junction high above the red brick terraces of Witton and Perry Barr. To right cranes lift members into place on the expanding steel structure that will be the new stand to Villa Park, the home of Aston Villa Football Club.
The road dips down to be enclosed by concrete walls, the traffic increases to five lanes in each direction, as the urban motorway merges with slip roads that merge to form a continuous strip of vehicles joining and leaving the main flow. In a cutting trees adorn the top of the concrete walls, and up ahead a Victorian steam pump of the type developed by Thomas Newcomen stands in the middle of Dartmouth Circus, the intersection with the middle ring road simply known as the Middleway. The outer ring road is not really a ring road, it is that collection of roads that form the number 11 bus route that is probably known to every student that has ever studied in Birmingham.
Emerging from the underpass, the route rises to pass the brick blocks of Aston University and the fire station, curving gently passing by the fire station at roof level. Dipping down again alongside Pugin’s brick built St Chad’s Cathedral, passing beneath the J.F. Kennedy Mural, the black arches of Snow Hill Station and climbing the hill with the post modern brick and patent glazing facades of the financial district on the left side, and something that resembles a war zone on the right, a product of urban blight as a result of the ring road, ruined industrial buildings stand in a landscape of rough vacant lot where buildings have been cleared but nothing has arrived to take its place. A thin concrete footbridge passes overhead, diving into the patent glazed pane of an office block. A brief glimpse catches the distorted reflection of the BT Tower, Birmingham’s tallest landmark, a communications tower.
Close to the top of the hill the road plunges down into the Queensway Tunnel, not a tunnel in the traditional sense, a concrete lined cutting with a concrete lid that passes beneath Paradise Circus and the Central Library. The tunnel is a continual curve to left that bursts out into the daylight alongside the red cage, a car park that is clad in a framework of red steel box sections and meshes, with planters, like large window boxes, with vines and climbers slowly concealing the car park between a blanket of green.
Passing beneath a footbridge with a spiral ramp, past grey office blocks to follow signs to the City Centre, exit the motorway and take the left onto Smallbrook Queensway where the Concrete Collar has been broken, block paving lines the surface of the street, trees are planted in iron gratings. Shop fronts appear at the base of the concrete blocks, on the right side the concrete block is continuous, crossing the road on enormous concrete legs, the façade a sculptural ribbon that follows the curve of the road. The façade below the ribbon reads like a high water mark, and now the tide has gone out exposing the shop fronts and a street.
The traffic light turns green and the road climbs to pass beneath the heavy white bridge of the Bull Ring Centre, past the North point in the median to enter St Martins Circus, the Rotunda on the left above a concrete wall, on the right the Fuji Film building behind the trees that are visible over the top of the concrete wall. Passing alongside the Bull Ring Centre between the concrete walls, a glimpse of the black spire of St Martins, a peculiar pub situated block on concrete legs above what appears to be a void bearing the name ‘The Ship Ashore’. Traffic is dominated the blue and silver of buses as they grow more concentrated along the array of stops that bring people into the city centre.
Passing along Moor Street Queensway, the brick and cast iron ruin of the abandoned former Great Western Railway station, that stands alongside the steel and polycarbonate sheet addition that was made when the railway was reconnected with Snow Hill in 1987 in a reversal of the Beeching plan of the 1960s. The road dips beneath the elevated traffic island of Masshouse Circus, a forest of concrete columns and wire netting fences preventing people from walking out of the car park and into the traffic. Rising once again on James Watt Queensway alongside the brick clad blocks of the halls of residence at Aston University, to the Fire station beneath the elevated Aston Expressway.
The full story is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble published by Xlibris — Do We Need ARCHITECTS? A Journey Beneath the Surface of Architecture
The city designed for the car driver, has its own landmarks, although not exactly as glamorous as the Monaco Grand Prix. Travelling along the Aston Expressway from Spaghetti Junction high above the red brick terraces of Witton and Perry Barr. To right cranes lift members into place on the expanding steel structure that will be the new stand to Villa Park, the home of Aston Villa Football Club.
The road dips down to be enclosed by concrete walls, the traffic increases to five lanes in each direction, as the urban motorway merges with slip roads that merge to form a continuous strip of vehicles joining and leaving the main flow. In a cutting trees adorn the top of the concrete walls, and up ahead a Victorian steam pump of the type developed by Thomas Newcomen stands in the middle of Dartmouth Circus, the intersection with the middle ring road simply known as the Middleway. The outer ring road is not really a ring road, it is that collection of roads that form the number 11 bus route that is probably known to every student that has ever studied in Birmingham.
Emerging from the underpass, the route rises to pass the brick blocks of Aston University and the fire station, curving gently passing by the fire station at roof level. Dipping down again alongside Pugin’s brick built St Chad’s Cathedral, passing beneath the J.F. Kennedy Mural, the black arches of Snow Hill Station and climbing the hill with the post modern brick and patent glazing facades of the financial district on the left side, and something that resembles a war zone on the right, a product of urban blight as a result of the ring road, ruined industrial buildings stand in a landscape of rough vacant lot where buildings have been cleared but nothing has arrived to take its place. A thin concrete footbridge passes overhead, diving into the patent glazed pane of an office block. A brief glimpse catches the distorted reflection of the BT Tower, Birmingham’s tallest landmark, a communications tower.
Close to the top of the hill the road plunges down into the Queensway Tunnel, not a tunnel in the traditional sense, a concrete lined cutting with a concrete lid that passes beneath Paradise Circus and the Central Library. The tunnel is a continual curve to left that bursts out into the daylight alongside the red cage, a car park that is clad in a framework of red steel box sections and meshes, with planters, like large window boxes, with vines and climbers slowly concealing the car park between a blanket of green.
Passing beneath a footbridge with a spiral ramp, past grey office blocks to follow signs to the City Centre, exit the motorway and take the left onto Smallbrook Queensway where the Concrete Collar has been broken, block paving lines the surface of the street, trees are planted in iron gratings. Shop fronts appear at the base of the concrete blocks, on the right side the concrete block is continuous, crossing the road on enormous concrete legs, the façade a sculptural ribbon that follows the curve of the road. The façade below the ribbon reads like a high water mark, and now the tide has gone out exposing the shop fronts and a street.
The traffic light turns green and the road climbs to pass beneath the heavy white bridge of the Bull Ring Centre, past the North point in the median to enter St Martins Circus, the Rotunda on the left above a concrete wall, on the right the Fuji Film building behind the trees that are visible over the top of the concrete wall. Passing alongside the Bull Ring Centre between the concrete walls, a glimpse of the black spire of St Martins, a peculiar pub situated block on concrete legs above what appears to be a void bearing the name ‘The Ship Ashore’. Traffic is dominated the blue and silver of buses as they grow more concentrated along the array of stops that bring people into the city centre.
Passing along Moor Street Queensway, the brick and cast iron ruin of the abandoned former Great Western Railway station, that stands alongside the steel and polycarbonate sheet addition that was made when the railway was reconnected with Snow Hill in 1987 in a reversal of the Beeching plan of the 1960s. The road dips beneath the elevated traffic island of Masshouse Circus, a forest of concrete columns and wire netting fences preventing people from walking out of the car park and into the traffic. Rising once again on James Watt Queensway alongside the brick clad blocks of the halls of residence at Aston University, to the Fire station beneath the elevated Aston Expressway.
The full story is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble published by Xlibris — Do We Need ARCHITECTS? A Journey Beneath the Surface of Architecture
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