Don’t close door on our past in new HS2 ‘gateway to Brum’
“IT is, in part, a reference to the Brutiful Birmingham architectural language of the 1970s.”
This is how the architects, Stephenson, Hamilton, Risley, refer to their design for the second phase of Exchange Square, off James Watt Queensway.
What a wonderful surprise and how flattering to have our name used to acknowledge this important phase in Birmingham’s architectural history.
But are they aware that the neighbouring complex which best demonstrates the ‘Brutfiul Birmingham architectural language of the 1970s’, Sir Frederick Gibberd’s Corporation Square, is earmarked for demolition?
It is to their credit that they have understood the underlying architectural aesthetic of the area, but they were not the first.
As the centrepiece of the area, Corporation Square was designed in Portland Stone to harmonise with the 19th century Portland stone grandeur of the former Lewis’s department store just across Corporation Street.
Andy Foster in Birmingham: Pevsner Architectural Guides describes The Square, as Corporation Square is now generally known, as: “Birmingham’s best 1960s shopping development. A cool Portland Stone podium with carefully placed slit windows, over a recessed ground floor… an early hint of late Le Corbusier in the city.”
As a campaign group, Brutiful Birmingham felt strongly enough that Corporation Square represented the city’s 1960s post-war regeneration both historically and architecturally that it merited an application for statutory listing.
Sadly, Historic England did not agree and it seems HS2 has sealed its fate.
At present it is subject to a Certificate of Immunity from listing which will run out in January 2024 and current plans call for demolition of the whole complex.
Yet the area is a vibrant, bustling hub of city life with a constant flow of
buses bringing people from all over the city to an obviously thriving centre for ordinary Birmingham people.
Corporation Square is still full of independent shops, there is a safe, green play space in the centre of the concourse, and Oasis is still open.
Down on Dale End the iconic Top Rank Suite music venue has reopened as Forum Birmingham.
For 20 years it was the musical cradle of so many wonderful bands and holds so many happy memories for people.
The importance of this musical heritage was dramatically acknowledged
in the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games.
The care and respect with which successive architects have responded to their surroundings here have made this an area of special quality, with its medley of buildings offset from one another.
The Portland stone buildings are punctuated by several buildings finished with the addition of simple brick.
The 21-storey McLaren Tower, built in 1972, is a fine and admired example. Internally refurbished in 2009, it survives as an integral part of the streetscape and of the complex
which will become Exchange Square.
The darker side of our visit was to realise that much of the neighbouring area, including Corporation Square, is blighted by the uncertainty of short leases, empty buildings and the near certainty of demolition.
There will be years of disruption caused by the massive building work, and Bull Street is now ripped up to build more tramway.
All this to make way for the much trumpeted “HS2 Gateway” which sacrifices this working, living resource for ordinary Birmingham people.
All this destruction and new building on such a huge scale denies the global need to curb waste and reduce the enormous carbon cost of the construction industry which currently contributes some 40% to the UK’s carbon emissions.
With a little thought, most of the threatened buildings here could and should be repurposed if we are to meet our zero carbon targets.
Corporation Square, a beautiful example of the best in 1960s/70s architecture and a unique work by a celebrated, Birmingham born and trained architect, still looks good, performs well and serves its community.
Then there is the spread of car parks on Dale End, now becoming redundant as cars are excluded from the city centre. These are in good condition, fit well into the surrounding cityscape.
Take a look at the interplay between the sharp angles of the tower block and the rounded corners of the stepped podium.
It makes a very interesting composition.
It just needs imagination, the kind of imagination that has been demonstrated in many cities around the world. Car parks are perfectly capable of a transformation into housing.
Many people are recognising the potential for this kind of repurposing as the demand for new homes increases.
John Lewis department stores have started a project to convert their car parks into 10,000 new rental homes across the country, a double win to reduce pollution and to provide much needed new housing.
A city councillor railing against post-war buildings said: “We are not a 60s or 70s city…”
Indeed, we are not, but neither are we a 20s or 30s city, nor a Victorian city, nor a medieval city. We are all of the above.
We are the product of our history and a product of the diversity which we recognise as Birmingham today.
We move “forward” not at the expense of what has gone before but because of it.
If this new HS2 “gateway” is to present Birmingham to the world, surely it must include not only the best new architecture but also a very real sense of our unique history and community.
Mary Keating represents Brutiful
Birmingham, which campaigns for the conservation of the `best modernist architecture in the city