Travel-ating

Still in Birmingham, we spent this morning on a walking tour of the city and its history which took in the new library building, designed by Dutch architect Patrick Arends.  Its an interesting space, and so typical of Birmingham in so many ways.  The library which cost £188m is a winner of many awards, yet Birmingham City Council have had to reduce its opening hours due to their budgetary constraints.  I believe that they have also asked for donations of books as they don't have the money themselves ...

The previous library, a brutalist concrete structure erected in the mid 1970s was designed by John Madin, and used an inverted ziggurat shape. it was planned as part of an integrated development of the surrounding Paradise Circus, but (true to form) Birmingham City Council ran out of money and the Paradise Circus development was never properly implemented and remained a bit of an urban wasteland in the heart of Birmingham.  Moves were made to recognise the architectural importance of the building but the City Council fought hard to ensure that the library could not be listed.  This despite Prince Charles's rather witty comment that it looked more like a place where books were incinerated rather than kept.

The new building also has its detractors, but I rather liked it, from this morning's visit.  As you can see from my extra, at the top of the building there is the specialist Shakespeare Memorial Room, which was designed in 1882 by John Henry Chamberlain for the first Central Library.  When the old building was demolished to make way for the brutalist ziggurat in 1974 Chamberlain's room was dismantled and later fitted into the new concrete shell of the new library complex. When the current Library of Birmingham was built, it was again moved, to the top floor. It houses Britain’s most important Shakespeare collection.