Catch the art bus at Birmingham Coach Station
The rebuilt coach station and its public art programme have raised the bar for Digbeth, writes Terry Grimley.
While the history of postwar Birmingham is littered with examples of developments that promised much but turned out to be a disappointment, it’s not easy to think of many occasions when the opposite has happened.
Perhaps, though, the new Birmingham Coach Station in Digbeth, which opened on Monday, could be one. When National Express dropped plans by architects Make for a wacky new building in favour of a remodelling of the existing one, it seemed serious aspirations had been jettisoned yet again.
But now that the wraps have finally come off the glass and copper-clad £14m makeover by Manchester-based SBS Architects, it is suddenly looking like a smart as well as economical solution to one of Birmingham’s longest-running embarrassments.
A sense of pleasant surprise is palpable on the thread covering the project at www.skyscrapercity.com, the internet forum for development enthusiasts in the city.
“I am astonished how good this has turned out – it’s a lesson in how to create something pretty darn good on a budget,” one forum member commented, while another added: “It may even persuade me to use a coach sometime. This is a proper gateway.”
The coach station is also notable for a public art programme which sets down a marker for future developments in an area long designated as a future cultural quarter. It consists of three distinct elements – Boundary, a 181-metre sculptural fence by Birmingham-based Rob Colbourne and Stuart Mugridge, a large sign by Glasgow artist Dave Sherry on the neighbouring building which houses Glenn Howells Architects, and a short film by audio-visual artist Mat Beckett with a group of local young people.
The package, which has already won a Jaguar Land Rover Arts & Business award, was co-ordinated by arts consultant Claire Farrell, whose other projects include educational work for the CBSO.
Originally from Herefordshire, she came to Birmingham to take a degree in visual communication and two years ago landed the job of project-managing the Festival of Extreme Buildings. “That’s when I realised I was excited about the city and wanted to do stuff here,” she says. “There are lots of arts organisations doing interesting things. I’m interested in the city developing and in trying to make some changes.”
With its Big City Plan in mind the city council refused to accept a cheap fencing solution for the new coach station, and Claire was approached by National Express to help find an acceptable solution.
“There was a particular question about the Bradford Street corner, where a building had been demolished. I looked at the site and thought it was really exciting.
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