Library of Birmingham

SITE LINES Library of Birmingham Howard Watson applauds Mecanoo’s designs for a new library in Birmingham and the aim to bring coherence to the city centre, but questions the destruction of the nearby Central Library, an unusual Brutalist building by John Madin, which is to make way for a further retail/leisure scheme. Mecanoo Architecten, Library of Birmingham, Birmingham, due for completion 2013 Concept design for the library with the glass facade encased in metal filigree. 142+ right: Artist’s impression of the proposed amphitheatre in front of the library’s overhanging, frontal projection. below right: Concept design for Centenary Square and the Library of Birmingham, which will be linked to the existing Birmingham Repertory Theatre (left) to form a collective centre for creativity and education. British urban planning may often appear to be beset by extraordinary short-termism, with projects realised in seemingly blinkered isolation, regardless of an overarching rationale to solve major problems. However, Birmingham City Council has initiated a far-sighted approach with a £20 billion, 20-year ‘Big City Plan’ to overhaul the centre of the second largest city in Britain. At the heart of the plan to shake off Birmingham ’s old image as an unfocused, cultureless, concrete jungle will be the largest public library building in Europe. The council’s level of ambition is typified by the appointment of Dutch architects Mecanoo Architecten, responsible for the highly acclaimed library at Delft Technical University. Mecanoo’s approach is to dismiss any idea that there should be a contemporary library typology. Consequently, the £193 million, 31,000-square-metre (333,681- offers no sense of place. The section in front of the library will look square-foot) development, due to open in 2013, will be down into an outdoor, sheltered amphitheatre below ground level. In inspired by the library’s specific resources, which tandem with the adjacent Symphony Hall and the Rep, the library will include an enormous local archive. The architecture will bring a unified cultural and social focus to the centre of the city. also be linked to the design traditions of Birmingham Mecanoo’s design for the library is both considerate and original, and its industrial past. The receding and projecting box but the fate of the nearby Central Library leads one to be wary of the shapes of its glass facade will be covered with a metal evangelism behind the plan to create a new identity for Birmingham. filigree of overlapping circles, inspired by local ironwork, Local architect John Madin’s building, a unique inverted ziggurat while the cubic volumes will reflect the building’s completed in 1974, may not be beloved of all but, as one of neighbours on either side – the 1960s concrete Birmingham’s most famous buildings and an unusual example of Birmingham Repertory Theatre, which will also undergo British Brutalism, it is worthy of thorough consideration for some redevelopment and share a foyer with the library, redevelopment and reuse rather than obliteration. It is to make way for and the 1930s stone Baskerville House office building. what Clive Dutton, Birmingham’s Director of Planning and Both the outside frame and the interior rotundas play on Regeneration, calls ‘another Brindley Place’, which, like the original the idea of pushing sections out from a core volume. Brindley Place – a canalside retail/leisure project that helped initiate a This will aid circulation, natural light and ventilation reappraisal of Birmingham 15 years ago – will be masterminded by inside, while also creating a projected balcony for property developers Argent. In retrospect, Brindley Place offers very viewing events on the square as well as three levels of little sense of architectural legacy, while its chain shops and elevated outdoor/garden areas with panoramic views. restaurants are almost entirely devoid of uniqueness or local The library will have a significant role in the character. One can admire the determination to address the need for reformulation of public space in the heart of the city. metropolitan development, but vigilance is required to ensure that the Francine Houben, a founding partner of Mecanoo, says bravura does not threaten the city’s established urban character and that the aspiration is to ‘Bring coherence. Don’t add sense of place. 4+ another icon – bring coherence!’ She also feels that the Howard Watson is an author, journalist and editor based in London. He is co-author, with ‘responsibility to bring the public to the outside space is Eleanor Curtis, of the new 2nd edition of Fashion Retail (Wiley-Academy, 2007), £34.99. See as important as the interior’. Consequently, Centenary www.wiley.com. Previous books include The Design Mix: Bars, Cocktails and Style (2006) and Hotel Revolution: 21st-Century Hotel Design (2005), both also published by Wiley-Academy. Square, which sits in front of the library and its two large neighbours, will be redeveloped as a destination – Text © 2010 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 142, 143(b) © Courtesy Birmingham currently it is just a broad pedestrian thoroughfare which City Council; p 143(t) © Mecanoo Architecten 143+.

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