John Lamb: Completing about-turn on Rotunda

May 20 2008 By John Lamb

I've gone full circle on Rotunda. A while ago, I advocated demolishing it, describing the Sixties edifice as a blot on Birmingham's landscape.

I was wrong.

I didn't reckon with the determination of Birmingham City Council and the ingenuity and skills of Urban Splash, which has transformed the former office block into 234 apartments, some of them literally breathtaking. Every available apartment was sold in a three-hour buying frenzy in 2005.

We were given a preview of the 265ft high, 21-storey Birmingham landmark that has gathered a colourful history since it was completed in 1965.

The building stood unused and unloved for more than 30 years after it closed in the wake of the 1974 bombing of the Mulberry Bush pub on its ground floor.

In the Nineties there was an even bigger threat to its future from the demolition squad, myself included.

However, we critics were roundly put in our place when English Heritage surprisingly granted Rotunda Grade II listing.

Some elements of the Urban Splash transformation at Rotunda are spectacular, if a little scary. When you walk out on to the balcony of a 20th-floor apartment, a glass balcony gives you a clear view of the drop to street level.

However, the apartments are stunning, even though you get a surreal experience inside a Trivial Pursuit-style wedge with curving walls.

Nearer ground level Urban Splash has created three duplex apartments - which span the second and third floors and will set you back up to £450,000 - finding a way to utilise space in the building's former bank vaults.

This means that you not only have two stories but a large, communal balcony with a garden (artificial turf, of course).

Urban Splash, which also re-developed Fort Dunlop, is one of the most stylish and successful development companies in the country.

Since Tom Bloxham and Jonathan Falkingham founded the company in 1993, it has, through re-investment of profit, created more than 3,000 jobs, 1,000 homes and 500 000 sq ft of commercial space.

Everything about Urban Splash oozes style - even if in certain light you can't red the silver lettering on its grey business cards. It doesn't matter - they look fantastic.

The same goes for their Rotunda publicity material. It demonstrates a sort of design for design's sake that ignores the fact that it doesn't do the job it was intended for as long as it looks good.

Everything is hip. You could be made to feel positively out of place in a Rotunda apartment unless you wear an Armani striped suit with sockless feet stuck in trendy flip-flops.

Even the cleaners - sorry, serviced apartment operator - are called Staying Cool. You get the impression that this company is so switched on it might even refuse to work for you if you don't use the right brand of coffee.

To complete a day of high living, on to the Hyatt on Broad Street where I had a room one floor higher than the Rotunda apartment I had visited.

While both were breathtaking for their height, the Hyatt won hands down on the view.

You could see distant, rural hills from both but the immediate vista was Brindlyplace and the canal network - far superior to the scruffy rooftops you would see from your Rotunda penthouse.

Another job for the Urban Splash hip squad?