| Birmingham Central Library | |
|---|---|
| Birmingham Central Library - geograph.org.uk - 1189762.jpg | |
| General information | |
| Type | Library |
| Architectural style | Brutalist |
| Location | Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, England |
| Construction started | April 1969 |
| Completed | December 1973 |
| Opening | 12 January 1974 |
| Cost | 4.7 million Pound sterling |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 8 |
| Design and construction | |
| Owner | Birmingham City Council |
| Main contractor | Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd |
| Architect | John Madin |
| Architecture firm | John Madin Design Group |
| Structural engineer | Ove Arup & Partners |
| Services engineer | R.W. Gregory & Partners |
| Quantity surveyor | L.C. Wakeman & Partners |
| Website | |
| birmingham.gov.uk/centrallibrary | |
Birmingham Central Library is the main public library in Birmingham, England, and the largest non-national library in Europe.[1] It is managed by Birmingham City Council. The main section, containing the music library, other 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.
A new Library of Birmingham is currently being constructed in Centenary Square and will replace Central Library upon completion in 2013. Birmingham City Council plan to demolish Central Library once its replacement is complete. In 2010-11 Central Library was the second most visited library in the country with 1,197,350 visitors.[2]
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Special features include the Boulton and Watt collection, the Bournville Village Trust Archive, the Charles Parker 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.
The first Central Library occupied a site to the south of Edmund Street and west of the Town Hall. The site had been acquired from the Birmingham and Midland Institute (BMI) in 1860 after the construction of their own building in 1857 on the corner of Paradise Street and Ratcliff Place.[3] The BMI building was to include a library, but under the Public Libraries Act 1850 a referendum took place on the creation of a municipal library. After the first vote failed, a second one passed in 1860 causing the BMI and the Corporation to cooperate on the joint site.
E. M. Barry was the architect for the BMI building and it was hoped he could be retained as the architect for the adjoining library, however his plans were deemed too expensive for the Corporation.[3] Martin & Chamberlain's plans were approved in October 1862 for a tender price of £8,600 with E. M. Barry's classical facade retained in the design.[3] The Lending Library was opened on 6 September 1865 and the Reference Library was opened just over a year later on 26 October 1866. Initial use of the library was so heavy that the need for an extension was agreed in 1872 but deferred until 1878.[3] On 11 January 1879 a fire broke out behind a wooden partition serving as a temporary wall during building operations.[3] The fire caused extensive damage with only 1,000 volumes saved from a stock of 50,000.[3]
Plans to rebuild the library after the fire had been approved as early as May 1879. The library was rebuilt on the same site by J. H. Chamberlain in a Lombardic Renaissance style with a tall clerestoried Reading Room.[4] At a cost of £54,975 the second Central Library opened on 1 June 1882.[3]
As the number of books increased, the Council resolved in 1938 that a new library was 'an urgent necessity', but due to World War II it was not until 1960, and the development of a new Inner Ring Road through the site of the old library that a general specification was agreed.[4] The 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 Birmingham Conservatoire and its gardens. The site where the current central library is now situated was originally occupied by Mason College and Liberal Club.
The current Central Library building was opened on 12 January 1974, designed by John Madin, its inverted ziggurat form is a powerful example of the Brutalist style. With the Rotunda and the Alpha Tower, it is one of Birmingham's key Modernist buildings.
Madin designed Central Library as part of a large civic centre scheme on the newly created Paradise Circus site. Originally planned to be built alongside the library was a School of Music, Drama Centre, Athletic Institute, Offices, Shops, Public House, a Car Park with 500 spaces and a bus interchange.[5] The collection of civic buildings were all to be connected by high level walkways and the network of galleries which bridge the roads. The School of Music and a public house (The Yardbird) were the only other buildings in the original plans to be built and the high level walkways were never completed.[6]
Central Library consists of two elements, the extrovert lending library and the introvert reference library.[4] The lending library designed for heavy use and short visits forms a wing to the reference library and is of three storeys with a curved façade facing the Town Hall.[6][7] The reference library is an eight storey square block designed around an open atrium above a public square that was designed to be entered from four sides.[6] Above the square float the cantilevered floors of the library in a distinctive inverted ziggurat formation.[6] The designers drew inspiration for the design from Antonio Sant'Elia's drawings of Casa a gradinata and Marcel Breuer’s 1928 scheme for a hospital at Elberfeld, Indiana, another source of inspiration was Leslie Martin’s Bodleian Law Library in Oxford.[6] It is noted that drew inspiration from the similar design for Boston City Hall although a member of Madin’s design team said they had only seen this design after the library was complete.[6]
The central atrium is completely glazed behind deep concrete balconies, this arrangement was to make it conducive to study although there was good natural light the design was an early recognition of solar gain and the damage it can cause to books.[6] The large windows of the reference library face inwards to reduce traffic noise from the Inner Ring road.[7] On the outside the windows are high level narrow strips with black anodised window frames.[6][7] The space below the central atrium of the library was designed to define a civic square with gardens, pools, waterfalls and fountains and to potentially form an open air exhibition space.[8] Six pools were to be placed in and around this square of these one can still be seen on the north side of the library.[7] Madin also designed the semi-circular amphitheatre around the Chamberlain Memorial in Chamberlain Square to frame the entrance to the library and the new civic square.[6] The structure is supported on a square set of twelve reinforced concrete columns, built over the Inner Ring road and the uncompleted bus interchange.[6] The bus bays imposed a 36 ft pier spacing on the main block, and led to the standardization of a 1 ft 6in module for the design.[4] Concrete is strongly expressed within the building, the external finishes to structural elements are unclad reinforced concrete. The walls have been ribbed and the locally graded round aggregate is exposed by abrasive blasting.[4][7] The floors are made of precast concrete coffered units over which a reinforced concrete floor was cast.[7] For the cladding Madin offered the council a choice of Portland Stone or Travertine Marble to align with the adjacent civic buildings. A third cheaper option was pre-cast concrete with Hoptonwood limestone and Derbyshire spar aggregate with white cement offered by Alan Maudsley the City Architect and accepted by the council as an economic measure.[4][6]
The entrance hall is a long tall space deliberately drawing you in. The entrance hall is double height between the lending and reference libraries which is entirely glazed on the side facing the atrium and an early example of a freestanding wall made of toughened glass.[6] Before later developments the wall allowed the entrance to be flooded with light and provided views of the Town Hall from the escalators.[6]
The library aimed to provide open access to all 900,000 of its volumes. As no basement was possible because of the low level roads beneath the library and a tall book stack was deemed inappropriate because of the desire to keep the height of the building low so it didn’t overwhelm the surrounding buildings.[7] Storage of the volumes is on the same level as the reading areas, this dual purpose led to the low ceiling height of three metres.[6] Space was opened up in the reference library by opening up sections of the floors into double height reading spaces. The furniture for the library was specified by the architects with the preference for oak veneer book stacks and black linoleum floor covering.[7]
When built central library provided approximately 250,000sq ft of floor space which made it the largest non-national municipal library in Europe.[7] It was specifically designed for a long life and to stand hard wear and low maintenance costs.[7]
Later Developments
The council failed to implement even the modest original plan for Paradise Circus. Spending cuts and the decision by the council to sell of the land surrounding the library to developers killed the publicly financed and owned civic centre occupying the entire site.[6]
The 200 seat Library Theatre was built between the School of Music and the reference library block in 1983-86. The theatre was a design and build scheme by Henry Boot Projects.[6] Although the design was in Madin’s original plans Madin did not approve of the design and build method and subsequently has no involvement in the realised building.[6] Chamberlain House and the Copthorne Hotel were built to the west of the library in 1985-7 by Leonard J. Multon & Partners with wedge shaped ends.[4] To the north of the library where an Athletic Institute was originally to be built a six storey office block was built in was built in 1988-9 by Leonard J. Multon & Partners.[4] A footbridge connecting the library with Centenary Square was built as part of improvements to the square in 1988-89. The atrium was enclosed with a glass roof and boxy screens by the City Architect’s Department in 1989-91.[4] The space below was named Paradise Forum, originally proposed as an outdoors style eating and entertainment area it was leased to property companies who sublet the units to shops and fast food outlet tenants. The uncompleted bus interchange became service areas for the tenants of Paradise Forum. In 1999 the whole of Paradise Forum was sold off to Argent Group.
In 1999, a member of the public was narrowly missed by a small piece of concrete that fell from a cladding panel.[8] Concerns over the condition of the condition of the pre-cast cladding panels has required the installation of netting to prevent spalls from falling onto public areas.[8] The entrance from Chamberlain Square was altered by the city’s Urban Design team in 2001 creating a lobby and eliminating the effect of the original tall entrance hall.[4] In July 2010, the east side of the lending library was decorated by painted birds, the work of Lucy Mclauchlan.
The appearance of the library building has been much criticised, mostly due to the staining of the cladding panels which have not been cleaned since their installation to restore them to their original white colour. The building has famously been described by Prince Charles as "looking more like a place for burning books, than keeping them". In October 2011 the World Monuments Fund included Central Library on its watch list of significant buildings at risk.[9]
The Library of Birmingham is a new library complex under construction in the city of Birmingham, England, in nearby Centenary Square. It will be the replacement for Central Library. It is estimated the new library will cost £193 million and is seen by Birmingham City Council as a flagship project for the Redevelopment of Birmingham.
Argent Group acquired Paradise Forum and Chamberlain House at Paradise Circus in 1998.[10] 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 Birmingham City University (known as BCU and formerly the University of Central England) that would potentially create a 2,200,000 sq ft (200,000 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".
In the meantime, Central Library has for the second time failed to gain status as a listed building. In February 2011 the library received a 5 year Certificate of Immunity from Listing after an application from Birmingham City Council.[11] Once the new library opens, Central Library will be demolished to make way for the redevelopment of Paradise Circus.[11]
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