Birmingham Central Library

Birmingham Central Library is the main public library in Birmingham, England.

The main body containing the music library, collections, and reference library is located on several floors over Paradise Forum, with the main entrance and lending section in Chamberlain Square.

History and earlier building

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 Free 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 were demolished and the site is now part of the UCE Birmingham Conservatoire and its gardens. The site the current central library is now situated was originally the Mason College and Liberal Club.

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 the University of Central England 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 1974 Brutalist building designed by John Madin (the third library on the site), an inverted ziggurat similar to the earlier Boston City Hall, 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 campaigning for its retention. Paradise Forum, containing shops and bars, was created in 1988 when the windy space under the hollow main building was enclosed and the pedestrian access to Centenary Square improved.

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's current suggestion is 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.

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.

Bull Ring, Birmingham

The Bull Ring is a commercial area of Birmingham, England. It has been an important feature of Birmingham since the Middle Ages, when its market was first held. It has been developed into a shopping centre twice; first in the 1960s, and then in the 2000s.

The site is located on the edge of the sandstone city ridge which results in the steep gradient towards Digbeth. The slope drops approximately 15 metres from New Street to St Martin's Church.

British Telecom Tower (Birmingham)

The British Telecom Tower (formerly known as the Post Office Tower and, before that the GPO Tower) is a landmark in Birmingham, England, and is also among the tallest buildings in the city.

The tower was built between 1963 and 1965. It has 26 storeys, housing technical areas and offices, and five levels of circular aerial galleries at the top.

In 2003, the tower was painted an ultramarine blue to cover the existing light brown which had started to become darker with pollution. The balconies were painted to stand out from the tower in a dark shade of blue.

The Birmingham and Fazeley Canal runs beneath the nearby, decommissioned, Brindley House Telephone Exchange. This may have been the only telephone exchange in the world, under which you could have passed by boat. Brindley House is currently undergoing a refurbishment into apartments. It will also be reclad and will be illuminated from the base.

It is known for being home to roosting Peregrines.

Brindleyplace

Brindleyplace (often written erroneously as Brindley Place, the name of the street (in turn named after the 18th century canal engineer James Brindley) around which it is built) is a large mixed-use canalside development, in the centre of Birmingham, England (grid reference SP060866). It was developed by Argent Group PLC from 1993 onwards.

In addition to shops, bars and restaurants, Brindleyplace is home to the National Sea Life Centre, Royal Bank of Scotland, BRMB, and the Ikon Gallery of art.

The site covers 17 acres (69,000 m²) of mixed-use redevelopment on a grand scale - the UK's largest such project. The Birmingham Canal Navigations Main Line Canal separates Brindleyplace from the International Convention Centre, although there are linking bridges. The National Indoor Arena, Old Turn Junction and bustling bars of Broad Street are nearby and it is easily accessible and within walking distance of the main bus and train routes.

Birmingham and Midland Institute

The Birmingham and Midland Institute (grid reference SP066870), now on Margaret Street in the city centre of Birmingham, England was a pioneer of adult scientific and technical education (General Industrial, Commercial and Music) and today offers Arts and Science lectures, exhibitions and concerts. It is a registered charity. There is free access to the public.

Following the demise of the Birmingham Philosophical Institution, which wound up in 1852, it was founded in 1854 by Act of Parliament for the Diffusion and Advancement of Science, Literature and Art amongst all Classes of Persons resident in Birmingham and the Midland Counties, as the Council had rejected the Free Libraries and Museums Act 1850. The BMI commissioned architect Edward Middleton Barry to design a building next to the Town Hall in Paradise Street. Half completed, in January 1860, the first public museum was opened in the BMI. Immediately the Council reversed its decision, and adopting the Act, negotiated with the BMI to buy the rest of the site. The other half of the planned building (up to Edmund Street) was completed by William Martin using the intended facade but redesigned behind. The municipal Public Library opened in 1866, but burned down during the building of an extension in 1879. Exhibitions of art were moved from the BMI to Aston Hall during rebuilding. In 1881 John Henry Chamberlain (architect and Honorary Secretary of the BMI) completed an extension to the Institute.

When its old building was demolished in 1965 as part of the redevelopment of the city centre the BMI moved to Margaret Street, the home of the private Birmingham Library which is a Grade II* listed building, designed 1889 by architects Jethro Cossins, F. B. Peacock, and Ernest Bewley.

Charles Dickens was an early president after giving recitals in the Town Hall to raise funds. The BMI contains the 100,000 volumes of the Birmingham Library, founded in 1779.

Birmingham Town Hall

Birmingham Town Hall is a Grade I listed concert and meeting venue in Victoria Square, Birmingham, England. It was created as a home for the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival established in 1784, whose purpose was to raise funds for the General Hospital, after St Philip's Church (later to become a Cathedral) became too small to hold the festival, and for public meetings.

History

Two sites were considered by the Birmingham Street Commissioners for the construction of a concert hall in the city; Bennetts Hill and the more expensive Paradise Street site. Paradise Street was chosen and a design competition was launched which resulted with the submission of 67 designs including one by Charles Barry, whose design for the King Edward's School on New Street was then under construction.

Joseph Hansom, of Hansom cab fame, and Edward Welch were chosen as the architects and they expressed that they expected the construction cost to be £8,000. Hill of London was hired to build the 6,000 pipe organ for £6,000. Construction began on April 27, 1832 with an expected completion date of 1833. However, Hansom went bankrupt during construction, having tendered too low. The contractors were also losing money. Three guarantors donated money for the building; W. P. Lloyd, John Welch and Edward Tench. With the injection of this money, the building was successfully opened for the delayed Music Festival on October 7, 1834, despite the building still being unfinished. During construction, on January 26, 1833, two workers were killed when a 70 foot crane constructed to install the roof trusses broke and the pulley block failed. John Heap died instantly and Win. Badger died a few days later from his injuries. They were buried in St Philip's churchyard and a memorial, consisting of a pillar base made by one of the workmen for the Town Hall, was dedicated to them. Architect Charles Edge was commissioned in 1835 to repair weaknesses to the design of the building. He was also commissioned for the extension of the building in 1837 and again in 1850.

Built in brick, created in Selly Oak, and faced with Penmon Anglesey Marble presented to the town by Sir R. Bulkeley, proprietor of the Penmon quarries, the hall is modelled on the Temple of Castor and Pollux in Rome. Some limestone was used in its construction and fossils of plants and animals are visible.

Charles Dickens gave public readings here to raise money for the Birmingham and Midland Institute, and Mendelssohn's Elijah and Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius were both premiered. Sir Arthur Sullivan's "Overture di Ballo" was also premiered here in August 1870, as part of the Triennial Musical Festival which commissioned new works for every season. The hall was the home venue for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1918 until 1991 when they moved to Symphony Hall.

In November 1880 the Hall was filled to capacity for a Birmingham public protest meeting in support of Revd Richard Enraght, Vicar of Holy Trinity, Bordesley, who was imprisoned in Warwick Prison under the Disraeli Government’s Public Worship Regulation Act.

Popular music has also featured, and in the 1960s and 1970s, headline acts such as Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan appeared.

On August 9, 1902, the town hall, along with the council house, was illuminated in celebration of the coronation of King Edward VII. It was illuminated again on June 22, 1911 for the coronation of King George V.

It was also the scene of rioting on the occasion of a visit by Lloyd George in 1901.

It featured prominently in the 1967 Peter Watkins film Privilege and doubled for the Royal Albert Hall in 1996s Brassed Off.

In 1937, as part of the celebrations for the Coronation of George VI, the Town Hall was regaled in the various Arms of the Lord of the Manor of Birmingham since 1166 and each column festooned with garlands. The pediment also had images of Britannia, supported by mermaids, which were sculpted by William Bloye. This decorative scheme for the Town Hall and the whole of the city was devised by William Haywood, Secretary of The Birmingham Civic Society.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the front arches were glazed to create an entrance foyer.

Renovations

The Hall closed in 1996 for a £35 million refurbishment, undertaken by Wates Construction, that has seen the Town Hall brought back to its original glory with its 6,000-pipe organ still in place. The project was funded by £18.3 million from Birmingham City Council, £13.7 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £3 million from the European Regional Development Fund. The town hall's organist performed a piece of music to a group of school children in 2005 after the majority of the organ had been cleaned. However, the organist and the children all had to wear hard hats as the risk of falling debris remained. The hall is now managed by the trustees of the Symphony Hall. It is due to re-open on 4 October 2007, and will offer concerts again. At 1,100, the seating capacity is about half that of Symphony Hall.

Birmingham Children's Hospital

Birmingham Children's Hospital NHS Foundation Trust manage the central Birmingham hospital now also known as The Diana, Princess of Wales Children's Hospital, which provides general and emergency health care services to children in Birmingham, the West Midlands and beyond. It specialises in liver transplantation, cardiac, and neonatal surgery. Birmingham Children's also hosts the West Midlands Regional Centre for Cleft Lip and Palate, providing a mulitidiscipliary service for cleft patients, including speech & language therapy, dental, orthodontics, maxillofacial, plastic surgery and psychology.

Birmingham Children's Hospital is currently the only hospital in the UK to carry out intestinal transplants in children.

The Trust also provides Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) for the city.

As the Birmingham and Midland Free hospital it opened in Steelhouse Lane in 1862. It moved to a new site in Ladywood Road in 1917. In 1998 the hospital returned to its original site, previously used as the General Hospital, in Steelhouse Lane.

A helicopter landing pad is marked on the road in front of the hospital. This is rarely used however when it is, police officers encircle the area and prevent vehicles from moving along the road until the helicopter has been removed and the patient taken into the hospital.

In 2007, a new extension designed by RPS Group was opened. The modern extension houses a burns unit, one of three such centres of excellence in the country. As well as this, it contains an outpatients department, a neo-natal Unit, a burns ward and a burns operating theatre, as well as additional classrooms for the Education Centre, allowing children to continue their education whilst undergoing medium to long term care in the hospital.

The Children's Hospital is a Grade A locally listed building.

Beetham Tower, Birmingham

Beetham Tower (also referred to as the Holloway Circus Tower or 10 Holloway Circus after its address) is a 121.5 metre (400 feet) tall mixed-use skyscraper in Birmingham city centre, England. It is named after the developers, Beetham Organization, and was designed by Ian Simpson. When it was completed in 2006, it was estimated to have cost around £72 million to construct. The entire development covers an area of 650 square metres.

Baskerville House

Baskerville House, previously called the Civic Centre, is a former civic building in Centenary Square, Birmingham, England.

Built in 1938 (architect T. Cecil Howitt of Nottingham) it was the only component built from a grand plan for a new civic campus by Howitt which would have covered all of Centenary Square and the Convention Centre, and included the Masonic Hall (1926-7 Rupert Savage) (vacated Central Television building) and Birmingham Municipal Bank (recently TSB) building (1931-3 also T. Cecil Howitt) on Broad Street. World War II halted construction of Baskerville House (hence the rear brick wall, intended to be temporary), and after the war the use of Roman Imperial imagery on public buildings went out of fashion. A 1941 model of the proposed Civic Centre, designed by William Haywood FRIBA, Secretary of The Birmingham Civic Society, is displayed in the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.

Formerly City Council Offices, this grade II listed building remained vacant for several years after the City Council vacated the property in the spring of 1998. The initial refurbishment plan proposed conversion to a hotel, but the building has subsequently been completely gutted and extended two floors upwards to provide office space on 7 floors, and health club in the basement. Work started in August 2003 and was completed in early 2007 at an estimated cost of £30 million.

Baskerville House was built on the site of Easy Hill, the home of John Baskerville. A sculpture of the Baskerville typeface, Industry and Genius, in his honour stands outside the main entrance to Baskerville House in Centenary Square. It is by local artist David Patten.

Balsall Heath Baths

The Public Library and Baths (grid reference SP078843) on Moseley Road, Balsall Heath, Birmingham, England form one of many pairings of baths and libraries in Birmingham.

History

Planning

During discussions, in 1890, to include the Balsall Heath district into the city of Birmingham, it was decided that public baths should be built as soon as possible for the area if Birmingham were to acquire the district. The Bill was passed and Balsall Heath was acquired by Birmingham on October 1, 1891. Immediately, the City of Birmingham Baths Department were instructed to find an appropriate site for the construction of public baths in the area.

The City of Birmingham Baths Department decided that it was useful to work in conjunction with the Free Libraries Committee to find a location. The Free Libraries Committee were also involved in a similar process in finding a site for the construction of a library in the area after they were instructed to construct a library in Balsall Heath following the absorption of the area by Birmingham.

Construction and opening

The Free Library opened in 1895 and has a clock tower. It was designed by Jethro A. Cossins and F. B. Peacock. The Baths were added to the south and opened on October 30, 1907, which was later than planned due to a delayed operation in boring a well on the premises. It was designed by William Hale and Son. There are separate labelled entrances for first class men, second class men, and women.

On November 21, 1908, the First Class pool was floored over and the floor space used for social activities. It was one of a number of public baths to begin doing so in the winter months as there was little demand for the use of bath during this time.

Recent history

The library is a fully functioning branch of the Birmingham Public Library. The baths, run by Birmingham City Council, reopened following extensive structural work during 2005. They stand directly opposite the College of Art. They were given Grade II listed status as a single entity in 1982 however this was upgraded to Grade II* listed status in 2004 by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Facilities

The baths building consists of two swimming pools, three rooms containing slipper baths, an upstairs committee room, an upstairs caretakers flat, a water filter room and a boiler house. The boiler house has three levels: ground contains the boilers, first floor contains the laundry room, second floor contain a gigantic cast iron water tank.

The building was built with three entrances which all led to a central booking desk. First Class Mens entrance led to Pool 1 and the First Class slipper baths room. Second Class Mens entrance led to Pool 2 and the Second Class Mens slipper baths. The First and Second Class Women's entrance led to the Womens only slipper baths room. Women were originally not allowed to bathe.

Originally all bathers were supplied with a towel and swimming trunks, hence the need for the laundry room on the first floor of the boiler house.

Pool 1 is grand in its detailing as it was used as a First Class pool upon opening. Pool 2 is plain and simple in it detailing and was the Second Class pool. Pool 2 did not originally have cubicles and bathers changed on benches around the side of the pool.

Future

The Second Class slipper baths were in continual use until October 2004. The entire building closed for emergency works in October 2004. Pool 2 re-opened in October 2005. Pool 1 is presently mothballed. A bid is due to be submitted to the Heritage Lottery Fund in April 2007 to bring both pools and the slipper baths back into public use.

Argent Centre

The Grade II* listed Argent Centre (grid reference SP060873) is on the corner of Frederick Street and Legge Road in the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham, England.

Designed by J. G. Bland for W. E. Wiley, a pen manufacturer, it was built in 1863, and acquired the name Albert Works, possibly because it was opposite the Victoria Works of Joseph Gillott.

Despite the appearance of being a huge, solid building, it consists of long, narrow, multi-storey workshops only 16 feet wide, surrounding an open courtyard. This was a common arrangement at the time allowing natural light to reach workbenches from two sides. With floors constructed of hollow bricks tied with wrought iron it was fireproof, removing the need for insurance. The multicoloured brickwork decorates a design reminiscent of renaissance Florence. Recycled steam from the works engines went to a Turkish bath in the northern end of the building. Now flat-roofed, it originally had pyramids on each corner tower.

It was converted to offices in 1993.

Alpha Tower

Alpha Tower is a commercial building in Birmingham, England. It was built to a design by George Marsh of Richard Seifert & Partners as the headquarters of ATV. Now operated by the developers GVA Grimley, it provides office space for a number of companies and organisations, including Birmingham City Council, Birmingham Arts Marketing, and the Criminal Cases Review Commission.

It is a landmark and is a Grade A locally listed building. It was nominated for listed building status by The Twentieth Century Society in 2002 and the owners also applied for a Certificate of Immunity.

An adjacent shorter tower was planned but was never built. The site of the tower that was not built is now proposed as the location for another, but taller building called V Building as part of the wider Arena Central development which will redevelop the former Central Independent Television studios which are adjacent to the tower. V Building will be 147 metres tall.

The tower featured in the Cliff Richard film Take Me High for both exterior and interior shots.