Open letter about Ringway Centre
DEAR Councillor Ian Ward and WMCA Mayor Andy Street,
The Ringway Centre, by James Roberts (1962), on Smallbrook Queensway is one of the few Brutalist buildings we have left in the city. Importantly it demonstrates the unique Birmingham Brutalist style developed here in the 1960s.
The fact that the Twentieth Century Society have included the Ringway Centre in their recently published list of buildings at risk illustrates the national importance of this building. It is included in Birmingham’s
Local List at Grade B (2013) - ‘Structures or features that are important in the city-wide architectural context… and warrant positive efforts to ensure their preservation.’
In an article for the Guardian (September
12, 2022), architecture critic Oliver Wainwright described Smallbrook Queensway as “one of (Birmingham’s) most important buildings”.
The environmental cost of demolition is well documented. When calculating the whole life carbon cost of a building, up to 75% is the building/construction itself.
To achieve net zero the city must include a proper calculation, assessment and consideration of a building’s embodied carbon and whole life carbon in all policy and planning, including any proposed demolition.
Birmingham City Council and the West Midlands Combined Authority have made a number of commitments to net zero, here are a few.
“The plan (Our Future City Plan) sets the vision for the City Centre for the next 20 years. The City Council’s R20 initiative is at the heart of the plan that includes a zero-carbon approach to development.”
WMCA - “In 2021-24 we will ‘Encourage businesses in making their own premises energy efficient, in particular in retail units and office buildings” and ”reduce carbon emissions by 13% a year.”
The building cannot and should not remain
empty. The Brutiful Birmingham column in the Birmingham Post (November 24) features an alternative vision that retains this heritage building.
This repurposing proposal for residential and commercial development demonstrates how the building can be retained, the energy efficiency of the building can be brought up to current standards and space added in the form of discreet, oval, 20-storey towers that pay homage to The Rotunda (James Roberts, 1965).
We urgently call on the City Council and the WMCA to reject the proposed demolition of this building and advocate for more sympathetic repurposing respecting its heritage value and avoiding the release of large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
Catherine Croft Twentieth Century Society, Director of the Twentieth Century Society; Dr Otto Saumarez Smith, Chair of
the Twentieth Century Society Casework Committee, Assistant Professor in Architectural History, University of Warwick; Michael Dring The Birmingham Modernist, Senior Lecturer, Birmingham School of Architecture & Design, BCU.
Founder of Birmingham Modernist Society; Mary Keating Brutiful Birmingham, Founder of Brutiful Birmingham, Author of Birmingham – The Brutiful Years; John Christophers Zero Carbon House, Richard Sapcote, Birmingham Civic Society, Chair of the Planning Committee; Matthew Vaughan, Birmingham Civic Society Planning Committee; Simon Sturgis AADip RIBA, Targeting Zero; Steve Tompkins MBE - HaworthTompkins (Architects); Peter St John, partner Caruso St John, for and on behalf of Caruso St John Architects LLP; Níall McLaughlin, Níall McLaughlin Architects; Sara
Edmonds, ACAN (Architects Climate Action Network)
coordinator, Studio seARCH; Andy Foster author, Birmingham and Black Country Pevsner; Professor Carl Chinn MBE, Ph.D.,
F.Birm.Soc. Historian of Birmingham; Libby Harris, Birmingham Friends of the Earth; Imandeep Kaur, Co-founder and director, Civic Square; Dr Matthew Jones, Head of the
Birmingham School of Architecture & Design, BCU; Prof Rachel Sara Oscar Naddermier Professor of Architecture and Research, Birmingham School of Architecture & Design, BCU; Henrietta Billings SAVE Britain’s Heritage; John Forrest
(Working Party Chair, Docomomo UK); Philip Boyle (Co-ordinator, Docomomo UK); Tom Cordell, Docomomo UK;
Elain Harwood, author of Brutalist Britain; Adrian Jones, member of CABE’s national Design Review Panel. Author of
Towns in Britain & Cities of the North; Chris Matthews, Conservation Officer for Nottingham City Council Author of
Towns in Britain, Cities of the North and Homes & Places; Owen Hatherley, writer, culture editor of Tribune; Sean Burns artist, assistant editor frieze; Christopher Beanland, author of The Wall in The Head, Concrete Concept - Brutalist Buildings Around the World and presenter of Park Date podcast; Oliver
Wainwright, writer and Guardian architecture and design correspondent; Barnabas Calder, author of Architecture: From Prehistory to Climate Emergency (Pelican, 2021), Trustee of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain; Sarah
Ahluwalia, daughter of James Roberts