The biggest hole ever dug in Birmingham
It’s extraordinary how hard it is to remember buildings and places once they have gone. Checking out the photographic exhibition around Birmingham this week helps. Another way to is to go on a tour with someone who has known the city all his life – which is what 50 people did as part of the climate change festival on Wednesday.
Ken Shuttleworth, the founding director of Make Architects, a former partner at Foster and Partners and the designer behind the Gherkin in London, chatted through the city centre's most interesting architectural features, from the Mailbox development that is the home to his practice through to the Rotunda building now converted to swish and sustainable city apartments.
Ken invited tour members to peer into 'the biggest hole ever dug in Birmingham', to accommodate The Cube, a 17-storey mixed-use and sustainable project sited alongside the Mailbox. On site for just over a year, the Cube is set for completion in April 2010. Make was commissioned for the job after winning an architectural competition in the city.
Ken, who is also a CABE commissioner, was born in Erdington and started his career in the city with Harry Bloomer in the 1970s. Talking about Birmingham, he said:
'So much of the city centre has changed for the better compared to when I was growing up here...until quite recently, the canalside area that is now Gas Street Basin and Brindleyplace was incredibly run down. Now the canals have been opened up for people, it's wonderful. People say it's like Venice.'
The city centre works best, according to Ken, where car dominance has been cut. And it was pretty grim.
'In Centenary Square, you had basically a formal garden arrangement ringed with cars. And Victoria Square was a big roundabout. You'd be lucky not to be run over before this.'
The visit to elegant and relaxing Brindleyplace, with its varied architectural styles, reminded Ken of the horrors of what once stood there.
'The old Bingley Hall was a rambling exhibition space. It was really horrible...now we have buildings that work well, including very low-energy buildings and a great flow-through of people.'
The tour paused at the new city library site on Centenary Square, offering time for reflection on the existing 1960s concrete library. Where once it had an open central courtyard, today that is covered by glass.
'It was real brave new world stuff when it opened...it could do with tidying up at the base and restoring to its old glory. Responding to climate change is all about keeping the best of what you have and making it work for the future.'
The tour wrapped up with a penthouse view from the top of Maiden's 1965 Rotunda, where it was easy to see a city of sharp contrasts between parts that had been regenerated and parts which had not.
'The east of the city is to be the focus of the regeneration for the next 20 years...including the redevelopment of New Street itself.'
Looking down on the city from the top of the Rotunda at the multiple air conditioning units and the heavy glass roofs atop the retail centres – quite aside from the multi-storey car parks that still dominate much of the city centre – the tour was left wondering how sustainable regeneration in the city has been so far, and how much more still needs to be done to respond effectively to climate change.
