Cutting the cultural and civic heart out of Birmingham

Oct 9 2008 Agenda

Birmingham City Council’s plans to demolish the Central Library will destroy the civic and cultural heart of the city, argues John Madin, the architect of the landmark.

Councillor Mike Whitby, leader of Birmingham City Council, and Mr Clive Dutton, director of regeneration and planning, continue to make misleading statements with regard to the Central Library and the approved Master Plan for the civic and cultural centre of Birmingham. The most recent of these statements were made in the Architects Journal of the 14th August 2008.

These misleading statements are made in order to attempt to persuade the Government not to accept English Heritage’s recommendation for listing and preservation of the Central Library.

Coun Whitby, as reported in the Architects Journal, states “we want connectivity but it’s blocked by a monstrosity: brutalistic, incomplete and it’s leaky.” Such a statement is not worthy of the leader of the Birmingham City Council.

Coun Whitby’s statements are naive and without foundation. He has apparently not studied the masterplan for the civic and cultural centre of Birmingham by the John Madin Design Group and unanimously approved by the previous city council.

If he had, he would have seen that this master plan provided for a civic and cultural centre with the whole area linked by pedestrian walkways with open landscaped courtyards with pools, fountains, and waterfalls giving “connectivity” throughout the civic centre, linked to the Council House, Museum and Art Gallery, and the Town Hall.

The Central Library was sited with a carefully balanced relationship with the existing civic buildings particularly in relationship to Chamberlain Square. The Central Library stands on first floor level on four huge columns providing a large open courtyard beneath the library decorated with pools and fountains with an open atrium above providing visual “connectivity” with all parts of the civic centre.

There was no “blockage” until the city council allowed a developer to fill the whole of the civic square beneath the library and the entrance to the largest non-national Library in Europe with cheap fast food shops, having glazed in the open atrium above with a greenhouse type of structure.

Coun Whitby has chosen to ignore this “blockage” and does not realise the “connectivity” was complete until the area was blocked by these fast food shops and other commercial junk in the very heart of the civic centre.

The connectivity of the civic centre has also been destroyed by the council giving permission for the construction of a commercial office building and hotel immediately adjacent to the Central Library in the heart of the civic centre. One has to ask the question, has Coun Whitby given instructions to demolish these “monstrosities” in order to remove the blockage?

Coun Whitby also says the Central Library is “incomplete”. It is incomplete because the recent city council did not complete the Central Library as designed but sold off parts of the library and the adjacent site for commercial development. The fast food shops use the archive accommodation for food storage and for delivery of supplies. The mistake can easily be corrected and the library and the proposed civic and cultural centre developed as proposed.

Coun Whitby also says “and it’s leaky. If we are not careful we’ll lose the archives”. This is a naive and ridiculous statement. The library has contained the archives for 34 years, and in spite of planned lack of maintenance the archives are still undamaged. Councillor should ensure that proper maintenance is carried out in the future and any damage to the structure is repaired.

Mr Clive Dutton publicly makes further deliberately misleading and false statements including that “the current library would need £160 million of investment just to bring it up to standard”.

This is an outrageous misleading statement to make in public and should not allowed. He has been asked to substantiate and provide details of this £160 million but has failed to do so. Coun Sir Albert Bore, as leader of the city council, wrote to me on the 14th June 2004 giving an estimated cost of refurbishment as £25 million. How is it that an officer of the council is allowed to make a statement increasing this amount by over six times simply to support his proposal for commercial development of the site? Other professional estimates have been stated at between £20 million and £30 million.

The cost of the existing library was £4.7 million and with the cost of maintenance even at £30 million for what is the largest non national library in Europe, a total of £34.7 million, compared with £193 million for a new library on a site that is too small only goes to emphasize the serious misuse and waste of the citizens of Birmingham’s money.

It is also vitally important that the citizens of Birmingham do not allow the present council to destroy the civic and cultural heart of the city by selling the civic centre land for commercial development.

It is also of very great concern that Mr Dutton would appear not to understand the need for a balance between creating a civic centre worthy of the City of Birmingham and allocating suitable sites elsewhere in the city for commercial development.

He also, from remarks, which he has made with regard to the existing Central Library clearly does not understand the requirements for a library to meet the 21st century needs, and indeed from statements he has made it would appear that he is not fully familiar with the facilities that are at present provided in the existing library.

With great care and consideration won the approvals or the city council professional organisations for the future of the citizens of Birmingham. Pressure from commercial organisations must not be allowed to destroy the civic and cultural heart of the city.

The Central Library is the largest non national library in Europe and is the busiest and most popular library in any town in UK. It has over 5,000 visitors a day. It was designed not only as a reference and lending library but also as a centre of learning. It was designed after seven years of research in Europe and America to meet the requirements of the 21st century.

The City of Birmingham deserves a fine civic and cultural centre. The concept has been clearly set out in the master plan for the whole of the civic centre and the design of the library and approved by the city council but Coun Whitby and Mr Clive Dutton appear to be determined to destroy the civic and cultural centre in favour of promoting commercial development. Birmingham City Council has an opportunity to redress the mistakes over recent years, and abandon introducing further commercial development in the civic centre and to create a civic and cultural centre worthy of being awarded the honour of City of Culture.