‘We can’t fossilise Brutalist buildings’ Councillor rejects calls to save post-war landmarks
BIRMINGHAM is without post-war chitecture, an councillor has claimed.
Councillor Barry Henley, a member of the council’s planning committee, said Birmingham had benefitted from the demolition of 1960s and 70s buildings like the Central Library, the old Bull Ring shopping centre and the recently demolished NatWest tower, in Colmore Row.
The Labour councillor’s call will anger campaigners calling to protect iconic 1960s architecture such as the sweeping Smallbrook Queensway Ringway Centre, currently earmarked for partial demolition and recladding.
Campaign group Brutiful Birmingham, which has written a series of opinion pieces in the Post, wants to better off Brutalist aroutspoken see such architecture, particularly the few remaining buildings designed by John Madin, listed before they are demolished.
Many imposing Brutalist buildings sprung up in towns and cities across Britain from the 1950s onwards and many examples are now listed in other parts of the country.
Notable John Madin buildings that have been bulldozed include the old Central Library (despite a call to list it), the Post & Mail Tower in Colmore Circus, and BBC Pebble Mill studios in Edgbaston.
A number of his offices near Five Ways in Edgbaston are also under threat of demolition, including Chamber of Commerce House in Harborne Road. Only St James’ House, in Edgbaston’s Frederick Road, is grade II-listed.
But Cllr Henley (Lab, Brandwood) hit back, saying: “We are better off now that the NatWest building in Colmore Row has been demolished, we’re better off now the Central Library has gone. What we can regret is that the Central Library before that – the Victorian one – was not preserved. We’re actually correcting a mistake by getting rid of that one.
“What we have to face up to is that some of these buildings have reached the end of their design life, their useful life. “For example, on Hagley Road we took a Madin building, reclad it and it’s now being let and is in use again. “You can’t simply say keep a John Madin building because it’s a Madin building. If nobody will rent it, nobody will occupy it. There’s no point it being derelict. “So we have a situation where the appropriate thing is to demolish it or the appropriate thing is to re-clad and refurbish it.” He added: “We are better off with the new Bull Ring and we are better off with many of the other things we have done to replace some of the post-war architecture. “If you knock down a tatty Bull Ring with low ceilings and which is non-navigable, generally horrible and no anchor tenants like a department store, and build a better one that everybody wants to go to, there’s a net gain there.
“I don’t think people should argue to keep things fossilised when you can improve them.”
But his fellow committee member, Cllr Fiona Williams earlier raised concerns on behalf of the city’s conservation panel, a group of architects and experts on historic buildings, that the city’s post-war legacy was being lost for ever.
She said: “There is concern that Historic England seems to be ignoring the post-war architecture of the city.”
Out of ten major Madin buildings in the city, there are only three left, she said.
“Historic England don’t seem to attach any importance to post-war architecture in the city,” she added.
“But every generation has a right to leave their mark on the city, even if it is seen subsequently as a mistake.
“We are losing a hell of a lot of the heritage.”
You can’t simply say keep a John Madin building because it’s a Madin building Cllr Barry Henley, right