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When (and where) was this.....to be?

R

Richie

Mr.Respectable
As a companion to my other thread "When was this?" which is still to continue despite having shot it in the foot by giving the dates away to Alf in advance (LOL), I thought I'd introduce a selection of photos both from the web and from hardback discoveries that depict locations in Birmingham and surrounding areas that were planned to be but never took off or ended up differently than their intended futuristic designs.

First off is this.....


As a clue its location has not yet been included in my "When is this?" thread. The date is not all that essential to get it bang on, I'm more interested to see what amusing suggestions folks come up with as to where it was when envisaged (and in this case still exists as a location having not been built over...yet!)
 
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No idea where but think - the way they assumed cars would develop style wise - we are talking the mid 1930's?
 
I'll announce the winner like with the other thread when there have been sufficient entries in otherwise not everyone will have a chance if the correct reply comes in among the first.

About 12 hours will make it 9 pm today Tuesday 28th.
 
I think its a projected 1950's Civic Centre at Broad St with the existing HOM encased in pillars. I think this would be the planners (Manzoni) idea of the new millennium in 2000.

Phil
 
Here's the answer.....

Most people were right in some respect, except for Alf who was out by about 30 years!

Beamish came up with the street first, but everyone was able to deduce what was in the mind of the planners way back in 1952.

Hope you all like the 1952 photo-plenty of detail there. I've been perusing the Birmingham Memory photo-book in Birmingham Central Library called simply "Broad Street" but my 1952 photo isn't part of that collection.

I'll see if I can find another "way back/way forward" for next week sometime.

Richie.
 
Another in my occasional series regarding planners' future desires for Birmingham reconstruction.

We know that the designs were from 1952 and the places were meant to have had their make-over 50 years later by 2002.

All we need to know is....where is the location??

I've blotted out one tiny part of the photo because it shows a well-known landmark, but will put it back in if I find the answer is too difficult. As its a Bank Holiday and many people will be away for the day, or the weekend even, I'll come back on Tuesday morning to see how people have got on.

Richie.
 
Richie said:
Another in my occasional series regarding planners' future desires for Birmingham reconstruction.

We know that the designs were from 1952 and the places were meant to have had their make-over 50 years later by 2002.

All we need to know is....where is the location??

I've blotted out one tiny part of the photo because it shows a well-known landmark, but will put it back in if I find the answer is too difficult. As its a Bank Holiday and many people will be away for the day, or the weekend even, I'll come back on Tuesday morning to see how people have got on.

Richie.
Click to expand...

Here's the picture even. LOL
 
Is it Hill Street, looking across what was to become Smallbrook Queensway and down Hurst Street? Hinkley Street going off to the left at 'The New Princes' corner. Was that going to be a theatre? Is the Hippodrome what's blanked off? I notice 'Civic Theatre' to the right of the red box, this was going to be a Theatre district by the looks of it.
The roads and underpasses are quite close to what actually happened at that crossroads junction.
 
I've only just found this thread, and my reaction is OUCH! They remind me so clearly of why I left Brum over 50 years ago. Before I was born, my mum was typist in the City's Public Works Department. When I qualified as an architect in 1955, my first job was with the City Architect's Department, which was only two years old, having been set up to take over an important part of of the Public Works Department, then very efficiently controlled by Sir Herbert Manzoni, but was making Brum an even uglier place than it was before.
I soon became involved with the redevelopment of the 'Civic Centre', which was intended to replace Manzoni's appalling plans for that area, and later with bits of the future Inner Ring Road. We were short of a good perspective, and so we took on a very nice lady who used to be a Public Works typist who was a good friend of my mum, (name of Jackie I think), She was a very clever lady, a wizard with the new-fangled felt-tip pen, and she produced perspective drawings which superseded those she had done only a few years before. I think by then, she had been told to tone down the car designs a bit.
For years I kept some Council publicity on the futre of the city centre, but I'm afraid I ditched most of them w hen I retired yonks ago.
Peter
 
Is it Smallbrook Ringway looking across Hurst St and the Princes building on the left is where the Albany Hotel was built?

Phil
 
Lloyd said:
Is it Hill Street, looking across what was to become Smallbrook Queensway and down Hurst Street? Hinkley Street going off to the left at 'The New Princes' corner. Was that going to be a theatre? Is the Hippodrome what's blanked off? I notice 'Civic Theatre' to the right of the red box, this was going to be a Theatre district by the looks of it.
The roads and underpasses are quite close to what actually happened at that crossroads junction.
Click to expand...

Time's up again for this particular photo, and yes Alf you are spot on with the location. I bet if I hadn't covered up the then distinctive tower on the Hippodrome no-one might have guessed it!

The "Princes" on the left was intended to be the new Prince of Wales Theatre whenever that was going to be, correctly placed by PMC to where the Albany Hotel became situated.

There may be just ONE more in this special Birmingham Planners' section but that will take a few days to find it, as we are short of one weekday this week which means with my day job I've got to fit five days into four to make things happen!

There are one or two other sources i can tap onto-from the internet directly- but they will need a bit of photo transplantation which may a few weeks from now certainly.
 
With the Hippodrome tower is blanked out beyond the junction, surely the Prnce theatre would be where Lloyd suggested which would have made Phil's Albany Hotel site over to the right on the other corner?
 
Mike

Lloyd's interpretation of the photo being correct then I would agree with you. I thought the blanked out area might be St Martins Steeple showing over the rooftops.

Phil
 
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