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Rebuilding Birmingham

J

jimjazzuk

New Member
Hi all,

I've lived in Birmingham for over 10 years now and more and more I am becoming interested in the city's history. The more photographs I see from the pre-1960s the more I'm saddened by what the council did to the beautiful Birmingham architecture which once stood here. Huge mistakes were obviously made and that's hence why now most of the buildings from the 1960s/70s are now being flattened. Whilst some of the new buildings of recent years have finally got things right (the Bullring and Library for example), I can't help but think that other new developments (New Street and the New Paradise Circus plans) are never going to produce buildings as good as the pre 1960s structures (the Old Victorian Library, Mason College Building, Victorian New Street, old Snow Hill Station).

I'm sure this would never happen here in Birmingham, but I was intrigued by the rebuilding of the historic centre of Frankfurt:

https://www.domroemer.de/konzept

Why not rebuild the façades of some of Birmingham's lost gems and make the city centre somewhere to truly rival our European neighbour's cities again?

What do you think?
 
Sorry I do not agree that we should build pastiche buildings. However had the opportunity been taken in the post war years as happened in many European countries then we would have had different attitude I believe but now is not the time.

Sent from my LG-D802 using Tapatalk
 
Hi Jim,

As you say many mistakes have been made leading to the loss of many beautiful buildings. I suppose that could be forgiven, due to the state that Birmingham was left in after the war. The trouble is that the wanton vandalism still continues and the aesthetics of a building seem to be of little importance as long as the maximum square footage of floor space can be squeezed out of the chosen site.
 
hello jim and welcome....a good post by you which echoes my sentiments but and this is just my own opinion my way of thinking is if we can not have the orginal facades then i would rather not have mock up ones....they would be of no interest to me at all...

and phil...as usual i agree with you entirely...

lyn
 
I think the cost of labour has much to do with the present day building, when those lovely old buildings where going up labour was cheap.
 
hi nick compered with todays wages of that of say 150 years ago i guess labour would seem cheap but in those days they used only the very best materials...our lovely buldings were made to stand the test of time took years to build especially those with wonderful hand carved facades which we have now lost and would be here today but for the price we pay now in the name of progress....these days it takes a few months to sling up a new building...think the new library took about 18 months or so and i am quite convinced that in about another 50 years maybe less they will yet again be thinking of replacing it...

lyn
 
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I wrote this a few years back and I think it is still appropriate today

To the people on Birmingham Planning Committee
I just want to say, what the hell have you done to our City
You stole all our landmarks like thieves in the night
You daint even ask us, now I just don't think that's right
You've done more damage than two world wars
The decisions you made were totally yours
You altered the Centre and tore it apart
You removed its spirit and ripped out its heart
Where's all the treasures and statues we knew
They are gone forever and its all down to you
You cannot rest easy in bed as your sleeping
The sounds that awake you are our ancestors weeping
Its us Brummies' who keep you in your jobs of high power
As we expect more of you, your standards get lower
There are not many old buildings to preserve and retain
But we'll keep on fighting till we make Brum a great City again.
 
I agree with Phil and Lyn, it's not just the cost of labour, but of materials as well. Concrete is a dirt cheap medium and is easy and cheap to manipulate. Stone and decent timber is quite the reverse and skilled stonemasons are a bit of a rare commodity these days. When we moved to Crete ten years ago, we opted to renovate an old stone house and extend it. However, when it came to the extension, doing it in the same style in stone was way beyond our means and we had to opt for a concrete lookalike. It took six months for half a dozen skilled men to renovate the original single story stone building. It took a mere ten days for a Greek and a Russian labourer to erect the reinforced concrete two storey shell complete with earthquake proofing and staircases!

I can understand new commercial buildings being built "on the cheap", but it is the designs that are so poor. By all means use reinforced concrete and sheet materials, but couldn't we have a little thought put into the design? And yes, this is a knock at architects, most of whom I wouldn't give houseroom to!

Maurice
 
postie said:
I wrote this a few years back and I think it is still appropriate today

To the people on Birmingham Planning Committee
I just want to say, what the hell have you done to our City
You stole all our landmarks like thieves in the night
You daint even ask us, now I just don't think that's right
You've done more damage than two world wars
The decisions you made were totally yours
You altered the Centre and tore it apart
You removed its spirit and ripped out its heart
Where's all the treasures and statues we knew
They are gone forever and its all down to you
You cannot rest easy in bed as your sleeping
The sounds that awake you are our ancestors weeping
Its us Brummies' who keep you in your jobs of high power
As we expect more of you, your standards get lower
There are not many old buildings to preserve and retain
But we'll keep on fighting till we make Brum a great City again.
Click to expand...


those words are amazing jim i have not seen this before and yes i would say as time goes by surely they will have more meaning to those of us who care deeply about what fine buildings we do have left but fear for and feel sorrow at those we have already lost..never to see the likes of again...jim could i have your permission to show this to others please ??

in the meantime just 3 of our fine buildings deemed surplus to requirements by the powers that be...this just cant be right can it...

lyn

the woodman pub easy row...gone
josiah mason college chamerlain square..gone
central library...gone..
 
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must just say that i am in no way against change...it has to happen just as it has been happening for centuries but surely there must have been a way to do it without the loss of buildings such as these...


woodman easy row.jpgjosiah mason college chamberlain square 1963.jpgView attachment 93498
 
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Thanks everyone for your interesting responses so far. Sospiri I think you are right about the designs being so poor with many modern buildings (and I do love the new library by the way!). I can imagine most of the buildings that are going up now will suffer the same fate as the 60s/70s buildings in 30 years time. I will admit I have a particular fondness for Victorian architecture, but there is something so human and pleasing about those designs that I just don't feel with the modern buildings in Birmingham. The Victorian buildings were elegant, classy and beautiful. Most of the new/up and coming builds are generic designs that when finished will just look like any other bland city. Maybe because of past failings, architects are wary of making the same mistakes in Birmingham and are thus avoiding designing anything too bold - at least some of the 60s/70s buildings were interesting and radical (Central Library library).

I too am not against change, and things need to move on from the 60s/70s mess, but in my eyes nothing that they are building/about to build will be as good as those that we have lost. And that is a backwards step which is a shame for Birmingham, which ever since the redevelopment in the 60s/70s has been a bit of joke as a unappealing place to be/live to many.
 
no probs jim happy to have an input although this subject is nothing new to this forum...we have been banging on about the loss of so many buildings and whats going up in place of them for years now...so much so that i know i must have repeated myself many times lol..

all the best

lyn
 
BernardR said:
Sorry I do not agree that we should build pastiche buildings. However had the opportunity been taken in the post war years as happened in many European countries then we would have had different attitude I believe but now is not the time.

Sent from my LG-D802 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I must agree with Bernard.
We still have many good old buildings in the city but I love the modern buildings that are going up. I love history but we can't live in the past. I'm just waiting for the flack now.:boxing:
 
hi ya froth...no flack from me i always say we all have a right to our opinions but i dont see myself as living in the past..just trying to preserve some of it....must say froth i am so pleased that if your local the the green man in erdington was demolished and a mc donalds built you would have no objections at all..i know i would..:loyal:
 
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jimjazzuk said:
Hi all,

I've lived in Birmingham for over 10 years now and more and more I am becoming interested in the city's history. The more photographs I see from the pre-1960s the more I'm saddened by what the council did to the beautiful Birmingham architecture which once stood here. Huge mistakes were obviously made and that's hence why now most of the buildings from the 1960s/70s are now being flattened. Whilst some of the new buildings of recent years have finally got things right (the Bullring and Library for example), I can't help but think that other new developments (New Street and the New Paradise Circus plans) are never going to produce buildings as good as the pre 1960s structures (the Old Victorian Library, Mason College Building, Victorian New Street, old Snow Hill Station).

I'm sure this would never happen here in Birmingham, but I was intrigued by the rebuilding of the historic centre of Frankfurt:

https://www.domroemer.de/konzept

Why not rebuild the façades of some of Birmingham's lost gems and make the city centre somewhere to truly rival our European neighbour's cities again?

What do you think?
Click to expand...

Sadly you can't repeat history, although it sad when you look back on what has been lost. That's why we need to preserve what we have left.
 
Astoness said:
hi ya froth...no flack from me i always say we all have a right to our opinions but i dont see myself as living in the past..just trying to preserve some of it....must say froth i am so pleased that if your local the the green man in erdington was demolished and turned into a mc donalds you would have no objections at all..i know i would..:loyal:
Click to expand...

As I said Lyn I like old buildings and the lad is one of them, so was the Norton my old local which was demolished for a Lidl but life goes on.:rolleyes:
 
thats true enough froth but i still dont have to like it and i will always have a rant about it as well lol

lyn
 
In Coventry a good few years ago now they moved some old beamed buildings they had kept though were they stored them I don't know. They re constructed them though you can tell because the plasterwork is good next to ones remaining in Spon Street. Which they call medievil Spon Street except they built a modern Sky dome at the end of it with a massive neon you can see from the air and a modern brick building also. But I like the street. They had a curry house and a trendy pub which were made to repaint them in more traditional colours and some hoardings which they painted historical things on. It is really sad that there is hardly any old Cov left at all. I took my dad round the ring road just before he died and it really upset him as he was born and bred and he didn't know where he was.We lost our library too and the arcade but I don't remember the old one.
In my lifetime my church was bulldozed for Sky Blue Way to come through, and All Saints lane which had pretty thatched cottages, and Harnall Lane houses built high off the road with large square brown brick walls. And many of our churches are now used for other things yet many of my dad's carers of whom a lot were African were told they had to hold their prayer meetings in school halls which doesn't make sense to me.
 
Interesting thread and similar debate also in another country ....

Germany's rebirth following the annihilation of World War II is nothing short of a miracle. But the country's reconstruction was not without controversy and it resulted in cities filled with modernist buildings which have not aged well. Now, a new wave of construction is underway coupled with a new desire to rebuild the old.
Five pages of comment in link below ...

https://www.spiegel.de/internationa...ermany-s-postwar-reconstruction-a-702856.html
 
Nice article.
Everytheem seems to be done on the cheap now and we have a shortage if bricks I hear. I watched on TV them making a modern house with old techniques with tyres, and earth and mud.
 
derekw said:
Birmingham has been given the very appropriate nickname of 'Skip City' in some places.
Click to expand...

I would not be surprised if that sobriquet is from the railways - staff and/or travellers. The rebuilding of New Street and the tramway system must mean that there is a skip (dumpster for our Stateside folks) every few yards. :biggrin:

I am reliably told that Manchester is known as 'scum city'. It was said that the origin relates to football.
 
I can't print what most of my ex colleagues used to call here. It rhymed with Coventry Chitty Centre. There used to be a nightclub called the City Centre Club that also got called that. I only go in if I have to. They are putting thousands again in to it but to me it looks like a badly jone jigsaw of cheap and nasty with a tiny bit of oldie worldie left nogo bits, pigeon poopy & pound shops, charity shop, I always come back with chewing gum stuck to my shoes and whatever goes in gets vandalised from the off. Yes there are nice bits but they are only bits. I can remember back to 1961 and there were ex bomb craters from the war behind hoardings and there are still loads of hoardings with building sites behind 45 years on. They keep re routing roads so I don't know where the buses stop now.
 
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