Catch the art bus at Birmingham Coach Station
“I must say National Express were very supportive. The original budget just for Boundary was £80,000-£100,000, and I persuaded them to put more money in to have a research and development phase first.
“Rob Colbourne and Stuart Mugridge had the best proposal at that time. It went to a panel and we selected them.”
Colbourne and Mugridge looked into the industrial history of the surrounding area, including the iron “slitting” process of the long-vanished Lloyd’s mill and the 18th century weighbridges made by W&T Avery, in working out their proposal.
Unlike a conventional fence, Boundary has no horizontal element, consisting of 320 free-standing, leaning sculptural forms or “haunches”, created from L-shaped steel panels, which rear up from just over two to six metres on the Bradford Street frontage..
The gaps between them allow glimpses of the coach station but present the impression of a solid wall as you walk away. Physically one of the largest public art commissions ever carried out in the city, Boundary complements the stylish makeover of the terminal and establishes a benchmark for the surrounding Irish Quarter for whenever an economic upturn enables development to resume.
The second element in the public art package, Dave Sherry’s sign on the side of the Glen Howells building, has received a rather more muted welcome. Located on one of inner-city Birmingham’s less attractive walls, it really only comes into its own when illuminated.
Claire Farrell explains that it came out of discussions with representatives of the local Irish community who were frustrated by the absence of anything visual to identify the Irish Quarter. The sign’s text, “A Hundred Thousand Welcomes”, is a translation of a Gaelic saying, “Cead mile failte”.
“The biggest letter is two metres by two metres,” says Claire. “Dave Sherry looked at various materials from concrete to copper and steel. In the end the letters were made by Central Signs, based in Saltley, from G58, a fully recycled man-made material.
Mat Becket’s short film recording the “collaborative process between private, public, community and artistic interests” in delivering the new coach station and the Digbeth Public Art Project is permanently installed in the foyer – something more interesting than bus timetables to study.
The total cost of the public art package was £450,000 – more than three times the nominal ten per cent of capital project costs traditionally aspired to by champions of public art.
Of that, £66,000 came from public bodies, but Birmingham City Council, whose insistence on an artistic contribution to the fencing was the catalyst for the whole scheme, seems to have got a bargain for its contribution of just £15,000.
