The cycle of life of the Birmingham Library ...

One of my trips in the summer was to see the new Birmingham Library … it had been much vaunted … and as my goddaughter was in the city at University I needed to make the trip.  Well talk about waiting til the last minute – she was packing to leave … having successfully finished her degree.

The new library

Her mother and I went up to the house, gulped at the packing scenario, and left to see the Library, have a lunch and relax and just forget the student’s boxes, bags, hamster bits (yes hamster I did say!), CDs, books, book case … and go and enjoy ourselves … before we ‘stuffed’ things into the car to get home!

The facade

I posted about Libraries old and new in early 2012 andmentioned the Birmingham Library then.  It’s had a chequered history … there is no change now … it even has three separate entries in Wikipedia.

The first Birmingham Library was founded between 1635 and 1642; a letter to Viscount Conway surviving in the state papers of Charles I refers to the fact there is no catalogue of the books available … this would be rectified "that the first catalogue is delivered to yr L'rp".

Looking down through the aluminium
circles which brings the whole design
together, including the interior and
play area as here

Unfortunately as the Library had puritan origins … its collection was dispersed after The Restoration of the English Monarchy in 1660.

A library had been due to be incorporated into the Birmingham and Midland Institute, but under the 1850 Public Libraries Act the municipality had to be involved.

The Lending Library was opened in 1865, with the Reference Library being opened a year later; initial use of the library was so heavy that the need for an extension was agreed and started in 1878. 

The destructive fire of 1879

However a fire broke out in January 1879 behind wooden partitioning and only 1,000 volumes were saved from a stock of 50,000.

The Clerestoried Reading Room

Demand was obviously so great that plans to rebuild the library were approved in 1879, with the library being built in the Lombardic Renaissance style with a tall clerestoried Reading Room.  This second Central Library opened in June 1882.

The display case letting us know about the fire, and telling
us how generous the public were in donating to the
Collection - as only 500 volumes had been saved

John Chamberlain, the architect, had his Shakespeare Memorial Library included into the 1882 library; the room was in an Elizabethan style with carvings, marquetry and metalwork representing birds, flowers and foliage: was highly praised.

By 1938, the Council resolved that a new library was ‘an urgent necessity’ – but the War intervened and it was not until 1960 that the project was looked at anew.  The government ruled that the Shakespeare Memorial Room be preserved.

From Chamberlain Square looking
towards Madin's 'brutalist' style library

This next Central Library was opened in 1974, designed by John Madin, a Birmingham-based architect.  Its inverted ziggurat form is a powerful example of the Brutalist style – it was one of Birmingham’s key Modernist buildings.

The brutalist Central Library of 1974

Brutalist architecture – what a term … but what does it mean: it became popular with governmental and institutional clients from about 1950s to the mid 1970s.  Examples are typically massive in character, fortress-like, with a predominance of exposed concrete construction, or in the case of “brick brutalists”, ruggedly combining detailed brickwork and concrete.  The Madin design does comply … doesn’t it?

Then in 1999 as in my Canterbury Cathedral post … a small piece of concrete fell from a cladding panel … highlighting the need to be concerned over the state of the building.

Frankly, are these tower blocks of flats any better -
I guess they provide housing ... which we are very short of
- I took this from the roof garden

Should it go - - or should it stay and be preserved … the area was being comprehensively redeveloped, as too the main railway stations – eventually the battle was lost and another Birmingham Library went to dust.

I was so keen to see the latest library and its architecture … it had been so hyped up and god-daughter and boyfriend love it and were going to show me around – by the time I got there … the chap was working in another city.  Still we had a good look round, probably needed longer, we went to the roof area and looked out over the city-scape.

One wall of the Shakespeare Memorial Room -
this was special

The best part was the Shakespeare Memorial Room at the top of Library … amazing woodwork and panelling in the Elizabethan style.

I was unimpressed by various parts of the building and the disinterest by some of the staff … and now see that I am not alone … as expressed here in the Guardian article.

The attention to detail was good - it
was the whole that was suffering

It seems incredible that in the space of a couple of years – yes 2 years – it’s got to this sorry state … asking for books, job losses –  which means more work for others … then they’re grumpy … yes there’s politics … it is a sad state of affairs. 

Where to … I do not know … but I am off for lunch with god-daughter and my mate … we are off to visit a Victorian professor of Botany … sadly you can’t join us … but you can experience the visit in my next post …

Here's the Guardian article on the Dutch architectural practice Mecanoo, who co-ordinated the whole project - perhaps too many cooks spoiling the broth ... or perhaps Birmingham Council, or a sign of the economic times ... 

Hilary Melton-Butcher

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