Birmingham Central Library

Birmingham Central Library

Building
Type	Library
Architectural style	Brutalist
Location	Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, England
Coordinates	52°28′49.07″N 1°54′17.17″W / 52.4802972°N 1.9047694°W / 52.4802972; -1.9047694Coordinates: 52°28′49.07″N 1°54′17.17″W / 52.4802972°N 1.9047694°W / 52.4802972; -1.9047694
Construction
Completed	1974
Architect	John Madin

Birmingham Central Library is the main public library in Birmingham, England. The main section, containing the music library, collections, and Birmingham Reference Library is located on several floors over Paradise Circus, with the main entrance and lending library in a wing fronting Chamberlain Square.

Collections

Special features include the Boulton and Watt collection, the Bournville Village Trust Archive and the Railway and Canal Historical Society Library.

The specialist Shakespeare Memorial Room was designed in 1882 by John Henry Chamberlain for the previous Central Library. It contained several early William Shakespeare folio editions. When the old building was demolished in 1974 Chamberlain's room was dismantled and fitted into the new concrete shell of the new library. It is in an extension of the main building alongside Birmingham City University music department's Adrian Boult Hall and used for Birmingham Conservatoire concerts. The room now contains the secondary collection of Shakespearean books and is mainly used as a small meeting room.

Architecture

The current building was opened in 1974 and is the third library in the vicinity. It was designed by John Madin, a Birmingham architect and its inverted ziggurat form is a powerful example of the Brutalist style. With the Rotunda (Birmingham) tower and the Alpha Tower, it is one of Birmingham's key Modernist buildings.

The Central Library is a complex multi-level structure which extends below the Centenary Square ground level to form part of a busy junction (Paradise Circus) on the Inner Ring Road and was to have included a bus station at the road level, although this was never provided. Originally it was intended that the Central Library would be set in landscaped gardens, with five pools, and that Centenary Square could be extended at full width to the library. However, the sale of the land upon which the Copthorne Hotel and Chamberlain House now stand has frustrated this objective. When built, the main Central Library building was open to pedestrians at ground level making a generous public link between Chamberlain Square and Centenary Square, albeit with a pedestrian subway (since replaced by a bridge) to what is now Centenary Square. This space was roofed and enclosed in 1989 after the footbridge (which carries 11.8m people a year) was built and the inner ring road lowered as part of improvements to pedestrian access to Centenary Square. The area now forms Paradise Forum, containing bars, restaurants and shops and open as a pedestrian route, 24 hours a day.

The appearance of the library building has been much criticised, mostly due to the staining of the stone chip and concrete cladding panels which have not been cleaned or replaced with stone cladding (as was originally proposed). The building has famously been described by Prince Charles as "looking more like a place for burning books, than keeping them". Nonetheless, the Twentieth Century Society is leading a campaign for its retention.^[1]

Birmingham Central Library		Boston City Hall

Architectural commentator Jonathan Glancey described the building in the The Guardian in 2003:

The great inverted ziggurat of Birmingham, and its 30 miles of bookshelves .... owes its curious profile to US precedent, not to commercial design. Its architect, John Madin, a home-grown talent, based its design on that of Kallman, McKinnell and Knowles's Boston City Hall (1963-68). It has real presence, and it is not hard to imagine it being transformed, with the help of sympathetic and imaginative architects, artists and designers, into a popular hub of fresh cultural activity.

Originally, it was meant to have stood amid water gardens rather than burger bars, which would have softened the blow of its muscular design .... Shopping mall and McDonald's aside, the building is a generously thought out piece. And, despite the case against it, the council is rather proud of the fact that the library remains, and will do so right up to the point of demolition, the city's busiest public building, attracting over 5,000 visitors a day.

Argent Group PLC acquired Paradise Forum and Chamberlain House at Paradise Circus in 2004.^[2] Together with major landowners, it says it is working to improve the environment around Paradise Circus. It has produced a masterplan study in conjunction with Birmingham City Council and the University of Central England that would potentially create a 2,200,000 sq ft (204,000 m²) mixed use scheme for the site. Argent states that it has invested £2 million in a refurbishment programme to "improve the physical environment, offer an improved mix of facilities and create a safe and bright pedestrian thoroughfare under the Argent management regime implemented at Brindleyplace".

The northern part of the pedestrian level peters out in a temporary steel staircase, descending to road level.

The City Council proposes to demolish the existing central library building so that a pedestrian street axis extending from Centenary Square to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallerycan be formed. As part of the scheme, a new Library of Birmingham would be constructed on Centenary Square beside the Birmingham Rep theatre.

History and earlier building

After the 1879 fire

The first municipal library occupied the northern half of a site on Edmund Street and facing the Town Hall. The site had been acquired from the Birmingham and Midland Institute (BMI) after they had commenced construction of their own institute building on the southern half, which was to include a public library - a referendum under the Public Libraries Act 1850 on the creation of a municipal library having failed. A second vote in 1860 agreed on the building of a library, causing the Corporation and the BMI to cooperate in a joint site. A design by E. M. Barry had been chosen by the BMI but was too expensive for the Corporation, so they chose William Martin to design all but the façade. The library was opened in 1865, but during the building of an extension in 1879 a fire caused extensive damage, destroying most of the 50,000 reference books.

The library was rebuilt on the same site by Martin & Chamberlain and opened in 1882. As the number of books increased, the Council approved the creation of a replacement library in 1938, but it was not until the late 1960s, and the need for the new Inner Ring Road that action was taken, and the current building constructed alongside. The original library and the BMI building were demolished (The BMI moved to premises a block to the east) and the site is now part of the UCE Birmingham Conservatoire and its gardens. The site where the current central library is now situated was originally occupied by Mason College and Liberal Club.

Library of Birmingham

A replacement library, to be called the "Library of Birmingham", on a new campus in the city centre's "Eastside" was planned. and Birmingham City Council commissioned the Richard Rogers Partnership to develop the concept designs. However, for financial reasons this plan has been shelved. The Council had suggested that the Library be split between a new building built between the Rep theatre and Baskerville House at Centenary Square, which as of January 2006 is a public car park (to house the main lending library) and a building at Millennium Point in "Eastside" (to house the archives and special collections).

In August 2006, the Council confirmed the area between the Rep and Baskerville House as the future site for the library. Capita Symonds has been appointed as Project Managers for the Library of Birmingham. The council's intention is to create a "world class" landmark civic building in Centenary Square.^[3]

However, it is possible that two-sites idea will be scrapped and the archives and special collections will move to the site at Centenary Square.^[4][5]

After an international design competition, run by the Royal Institute of British Architects, a shortlist of seven architects was announced on 27 March 2008. They were chosen from a list of over 100 architects. The architects chosen were:^[6]

• Foreign Office Architects
• Foster and Partners
• Hopkins Architects
• Mecanoo
• OMA
• Schmidt Hammer Lassen
• Wilkinson Eyre

In early August 2008, Mecanoo was announced as the winner of the design competition.^[7]

More detailed plans for the library were revealed by the council in conjunction with the architects at a launch event held on 2 April 2009.

Central Library has for the second time failed to gain status as a listed building. When the new library in Centenary Square is finished in 2013, immediate work will begin on knocking down the current building to make way for offices, shops, and apartments ^[8].

As of November 2009, final planning permission has still not been obtained, although work has already begun on preparing the ground between Baskerville House and The Rep for the "Library Of Birmingham" to be built^[9].

Sources and references

• Joe Holyoak. All About Victoria Square. ISBN 0-901657-14-X. 
• Stuart Davies. By the Gains of Industry - Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery 1885-1985. ISBN 0-7093-0131-6. 
• Rachel E Waterhouse (1954). The Birmingham and Midland Institute 1854-1954. 
• Architects' Journal: Paradise Circus; Architects: John Madin Design Group, Birmingham Metropolitan District Council Architects Department vol. 9, no. 2, 1974 June, p. 8-20.
• Architects' Journal: Birmingham central library; Architects: John Madin Design Group vol. 159, no. 21, 22 May 1974, p. 1137-1157.
• Interior Design: Birmingham central libraries; Architects: John Madin Design Group 1974 May, p. 292-295.

• Neil Nickolds: Emporis.com: English Heritage enters the final chapter for Birmingham Central Library

See also

• Media related to Birmingham Central Library at Wikimedia Commons

External links

• Birmingham City Council pages about the Central Library
• Your Icons Highlights from the Birmingham Central Library's collection on this West Midlands culture website
• Birmingham City Council pages about the Shakespeare Memorial Room (with picture)
• Back to the Modern exhibition in pdf form about the design, construction and current status of John Madin's library building (with photographs)
• 20th Century Society Risky Buildings register entry for the Central Library
• Architectural Critic Jonathan Glancey writes about the Library in March 2003
• Mark Leftly writes about The Strange Case of the Overdue Library in Building in 2008
• Madin's views on the state of the library, January 2007
• Birmingham Post article on the selection of Argent to prepare a new masterplan for the Paradise Circus site (October 2008)
• Photograph on Flickr of Central Library and Paradise Circus before construction of Adrian Boult Hall
• Photograph on Flickr of space below Reference Library before Paradise Forum was added
• One of a set of photographs on Flickr of the Central Library
• Photograph on Flickr of north elevation of Central Library with steel stair case to lower street level
• libraryofbirmingham.com website, including video of the launch event, 2nd April, 2009.