Bomb-damaged roof of Birmingham Museum to be revealed
The hidden bomb-damaged rooftop of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery will be revealed and restored as part of a lottery funded revamp.
Partition walls, lower ceilings and false floors will be torn out and original features revealed for the first time in decades.
The restored gallery rooms, across the Bridge of Sighs from the main entrance, will house a new exhibition charting the history of Birmingham – backed by a £4.9 million lottery grant.
Restored rooms could also be used to mount a permanent exhibition of the Staffordshire Hoard.
And changes to the 1911-built Council House extension, designed by Mailbox-based Associated Architects, have been given a warm welcome by the city’s conservation panel.
They include removing an unfinished rooftop dome, hidden behind partition walls and a false ceiling since 1940 when a Nazi incendiary bomb damaged part of the building.
Instead, an open skylight feature, called an oculus, will flood the main second floor entrance area with natural light.
Other parts of the second and third floors, which had been adapted, boarded up, used for storage or to conceal cables and pipes over the decades will also be opened up and vast new gallery spaces created.
Original mouldings and cast iron radiators will be repaired and returned to their original condition, while the leaky roof, a problem for more than a decade, will be fixed.
Museum history expert Nicholas Balaam suggested that the dome, of which little documentary evidence remains, could have been an embarrassing mistake.
“It was started but never completed. There was no internal decoration. It was never built to the original design,” he said.
He added that it was designed to give light to the area and that the oculus would achieve this.
Andy Foster, of the Society of Ancient Buildings welcomed moves to improve access to the building from the Gas Hall link bridge.
He said: “You get to the end of the bridge and what faces you is totally confusing. It is almost impossible to find your way to the art gallery.”
Tim Bridges, of the Victorian Society, added: “This is a great opportunity.
‘‘It is creating a more welcoming gallery space. As much as possible is being restored.”
Chairman of Birmingham’s Planning Committee Peter Douglas Osborn said: “It desperately needs light and the oculus is a major improvement.
‘‘The architects have gone back to the original designs to work out what the incendiary bomb obliterated and restore it.”
He added: “I would like to see one of the long galleries used to show the Staffordshire Hoard.”
The Birmingham History Galleries was awarded £4.9 million Heritage Lottery funding last year and there will be a major exhibition telling the story of Birmingham through the ages.
The proposals will go to the city’s planning committee for approval later this month.
