City of Angles

In which our hero thought of starting a post with a different phrase but then changed his mind before getting a bit misty-eyed about his hometown, possibly putting in too many links to other bits of the internet and, in what is probably his longest post to date, finally settling down to talking toot about photography…

Ah, Birmingham, bless its concrete heart. If you’re not particularly familiar with the place then there’s a potted history here. Despite everything and everyone it produced over the past few centuries, as a city lumbered with an unfortunate accent and reputation for producing cars with slightly shonky quality control, it seems to have spent the majority of the past 40-odd years much maligned and the butt of jokes made by the rest of the country. As a result, like the way the titular hero in Superman 3 creates a diamond by crushing a lump of coal under immense pressure in his fist, supporters of the city are fiercely loyal, sometimes to the point of fanaticism.

Architecturally the city faced significant changes in the years following the second world war, as part of the brave new world the grand railway hotels were demolished, the Victorian library was pulled down and even a Georgian terrace was flattened in the name of progress. In its place ruled King Concrete and the most brutal of Brutalism, tall, straight, square, occasionally pebbledashed and so Birmingham became a city of angles. It didn’t age well. The 60s and 70s went the same way as the 50s, 40s, 30s (I could go on…) and along with them went the vogue for tall, straight, square, occasionally pebbledashed buildings. Birmingham looked around and realised that, along with an unfortunate accent and reputation for producing cars with slightly shonky quality control it now had a city centre full of apparent carbuncles.

One of the most notorious of these unfortunate constructions that lurked self-consciously on the horizon is the Birmingham Central Library. Surrounded by the ornate trio of the Town Hall, Council House and Art Museum it sits on the site formerly occupied by the breathtaking Victorian Library building and as such was already at a disadvantage, like a newcomer who, replacing a popular former employee, is going to have to work damn hard to earn even grudging respect from their colleagues.

This task wasn’t going to be easy, it was big, it was square, it was grey. The original plan was for it to blend in with it’s surroundings by being clad in white marble but, well, the money pot was starting to look a bit empty, and concrete was cheaper, so concrete it was. A small number of people applauded it’s brave styling however the general consensus of the locals who saw their new library was that, despite the currency being decimalised in 1971, they had lost a pound and found sixpence. (Going off on a blatant tangent admittedly, but for more details on the complicated but numismatically wonderful world of farthings, bobs and tanners click here)  Even the statues that shared the space appear to have turned their back to it

Fast forward to the present day, then back a decade as we’ve gone too far. Birmingham city centre is undergoing a bit of an architectural renaissance based around the grubby Bull Ring Shopping Centre being replaced by a shiny new version, including the famous/infamous (delete as applicable) Selfridges building. This seems to kick-start an upswell of general smartening of the area, which encourages local, cool businesses run by local, cool people  who actually seem to be proud of the city. The average Brummie, by now well used to being a bit embarrassed about their hometown, suddenly paused, looked about them and realised that, all things considered, Birmingham ain’t actually that bad.

In the meantime the Central Library, specifically designed for a long, hard life lasting at least 100 years is, of course, starting to crumble after about 30 and the decision is made to build a replacement, which is designed, built and opened with, to be perfectly honest, the same kind of reaction that the Central Library got on its first day. Proof, if proof were needed, that most things are the same as they ever were, only more expensive and possibly with a blue LED on it.

With it’s replacement leering at it from the middle distance, debate soon sprang up about what was to become of the old library. Brutalism, like Birmingham, has always had a stigma around it and definitely doesn’t have the biggest fan club in the world. That said its few supporters are fully aware the majority of Brutalist structures have already succumbed to the wrecking ball and are keen to try and prevent the number of remaining examples dwindling even further. A campaign to ‘Save the Ziggurat’ was started, with a variety of uses proposed including a central government building, a satellite branch of the Tate Gallery and even cutting a slice from the middle and turning it into two separate structures. Sadly all these ideas came to naught and the demolition order was signed and it’s due to be replaced by, in my humble opinion, a collection of rather bland boxes.

In order to avoid that slightly nauseous feeling you get when you know you’ve missed an opportunity you should’ve grabbed I actually got off my behind and grabbed some shots of the old place before it becomes nothing more than a handful of dust on the wind and collection of photographs on nostalgia sites. The weather wasn’t great, grey skies, strong wind, low temperatures, but given as I was saying farewell to a landmark it was quite appropriate. At least it wasn’t raining.

This more or less set the tone for the photographs that day, mainly monochrome, grey or with very little colour in them. The sky was one of those uniform, flat skies that give a uniform, flat light that is far too bright but, at the same time, not bright enough. Especially when, being so close to a large building, a lot of the time I was shooting upwards. With a bit of tweaking this can be compensated but I experimented with pushing the image the other way, deliberately making the shadows overexposed and trying to exploit the noise and grain on the image.

I’m still undecided if the image below is my favourite from the day or not. I think it’s certainly one of the most effective, although I can’t claim it’s particularly original. Still, I’m just glad Birmingham City Council got a bit slapdash with keeping their buildings clean. A few more photographs from the visit can be found on my Flickr account.

At the time of writing (February 2015) the cranes are due to start swinging any moment. It’s very odd but this does make me rather sad. The library has always been there, I may not have actually been in it for the past decade, but it has always been there and the fact that soon it won’t makes me a bit… oh, what’s the word I’m after?

I’d look it up in a thesaurus, but you only seem to find them in a library.