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Central Library 2

DEMOLITION MAN

20-11-2009

Stirrer reader and Birmingham city centre resident Matthew Bott is not a friend of the existing Central Library. In fact, he can't wait for the wrecking ball to begin.

There have been many pages on The Stirrer defending the current Central Library and questioning the designs, or the need, for the new Library of Birmingham. Alan Clawley, and The Stirrer generally, is doing a sterling job in ensuring that the city council is challenged on their decision making, something which benefits the city in the absence of an effective political opposition.

I would like to put forward reasons for the demolition of the current Central Library. I am not an architecture critic, nor to I have any hidden agenda – I am just a regular Brummie that sees the Central Library most days and has an interest in the built environment and to see the city do well.

The Central Library is not without its merits.

It is an unusual building which is preferable to the bland offerings that afflict many towns and cities. It could even be described as iconic, although it probably reached its icon status when Prince Charles decried it in the 1980’s. Even though it is a large building, it manages to not overpower the neighbouring BMAG, Council House Extensions and Town Hall. Aspects of the design are also striking – minimising structure across the floorplates so that it can be reconfigured is clever, and the large central atrium is a prominent feature.

However, it does also have a number of negative factors:

1. Function. It is a library and although books should be stored away from sunshine in a stable atmosphere, if a library is to attract people to sit and read, relax and use the facilities, it should be flooded with natural light so that people actually enjoy being there. They don’t. It is a dark and dingy cavern, difficult to navigate and according to the library service, too small and unsuitable for their archives.

2. Form. Even though the ziggurat is an interesting piece of architecture, it jars with the neoclassical neighbours, and that is from the good side! The Central Library complex is about as unpleasant a piece of architecture as you can get when approached from Suffolk St or Summer Row. Beneath it is a forest of raw concrete columns leading to a maze of service yards, car parks, dead ends and stores, all of which are highly visible to the public. There could be merit in demolishing many of the outlying parts of the library and leaving the main body and the lending section, but the library then becomes even smaller. Furthermore, that would be an indictment that the complex as a whole is poor, and still doesn’t sort the ugly underbelly.

3. Finish. Much is made of the original design intent to clad the building in stone, with water gardens cascading down the inside. Well, it wasn’t and there aren’t. It is clad in concrete, and a colour and texture that looks particularly bad in the rain. Note the prevailing weather conditions in Britain – we’re not talking sunbleached Barcelona here! The city council has come in for criticism for the roof that was placed on top of the atrium and the retail units below. I clearly remember as a child walking through the bleak, windswept plaza that was there before and suggest that most people prefer the current incarnation..

4. Position. It throttles this part of the city centre. True, if outlying parts were demolished that would help things but only by a small amount, and it would not resolve the problem of a clear route to the Jewellery Quarter. Not only does it throttle pedestrian routes, but as a complex it straddles an enormously-important-but-outdated road junction that desperately needs to be realigned and reduced.

The Central Library may have seemed like a good solution at the time, but has proven to be shortlived. The entirely complex needs to be removed including the underpass under the library, and reconfigured. The Jewellery Quarter is virtually isolated from the city centre with Newhall St being the only main thoroughfare. Paradise Circus could be reorientated so as to provide legible routes north-south and east-west.

5. History. The Central Library isn’t a unique building – it is thought to be based on Boston City Hall built several years earlier, and coincidentally also disliked by Bostonian. There are better examples of Brutalist architecture (typified by the use of raw, exposed concrete) around the country, builsdings which not only are architecturally interesting but also fulfilled their remit in usage and integrate with their surroundings.

Just because the Central Library is the best example of one of the multitude of bad pieces of urban design that has blighted Birmingham doesn’t mean it should be kept. Birmingham has some fine examples of Modernist architecture so it isn’t an endangered species.

6. Future. All of the above can be contrasted with what could be built in Paradise Circus if the site were cleared. The Town Hall could be given a stunning new setting; traffic could be moved away and a pedestrianised zone created akin to Brindleyplace. Better use could be made of this prime space: new offices and leisure amenities, perhaps a premier hotel and well-designed apartments. Far more people could use the space in a far better way, whether passing through, living, visiting or working there.

Not only that but the site is crucial in improving connection through the city centre – Birmingham city centre is larger than the artificial border laid down by the Queensway and by introducing new pedestrian routes and increasing density of population, Broad St and Brindleyplace will connect properly to the city core.

If and when the wrecking ball strikes, I may shed a tear for the loss of the library as an object, but I will celebrate the removal of a poor piece of urban design.