Owing to popular demand to which I don’t agree; it seems that the abomination known as The Birmingham Central Library is to be listed, or at least thats the plan of the Save Birmingham Library Group and indeed English heritage are looking into the issue.

I must ask myself why.

The building designed by John Mardin has always to me looked like an upside down pyramid and it’s true that it has never fit the purpose for which it was built; an expanding book collection and archive, so much so that now we have to have a now one specially built at enormous cost.

An example of Brutalist Design.

“Brutalist modern building”

As described by English Heritage of all people; this does however, describe it wonderfully. In my opinion you can find beauty in modern buildings and design but the Library really doesn’t fit the brief. Birmingham should have a Municipal Library which is easy to use, designed for purpose and there for the use of the people, at present I’m ashamed of it. I like nothing more that perusing a book or indeed looking for one, but at the pyramid of shame its hard to find what you want, and it’s ruining the extensive collection of which Birmingham should be proud.

It’s time for Birmingham to decide what it wants to be.

Stuck in the Seventies or move into the Twentieth Century?

Tags: 70's Design, Birmingham Central Library, Pyramids.
Update Status: Modified at: 5:27, on October 2nd, 2008.
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This entry was posted on Saturday, June 21st, 2008 at 05:09 and is filed under The Arts, Thoughts on Things.... You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.