Report - Birmingham Central Library, Birmingham - March 2015

Birmingham Central Library opened in January 1974 – designed by Birmingham architect John Madin in the ‘Brutalist’ style – and was Europe’s largest non-national library.

The structure was once criticised by Prince Charles as “looking more like a place for burning books, than keeping them” but in recent years campaigners failed to acquire listed status to protect it from demolition.

The library was cited as the largest non-national library in Europe, and a powerful example of British Brutalism. It is composed of two parts: an extroverted three storey lending library, curving out into Chamberlain Square; and the larger eight storey reference section forming a bold inverted ziggurat, one of only two such examples in the world (the other being Boston City Hall). The concrete planes float above pillars now encased in glass, lending the top-heavy shape an improbable weightlessness. The vast interior spaces are low-ceilinged and cool, untouched by direct sunlight. The Central Library is the most notable component of Paradise Circus, a complex of tired concrete and glass buildings characterised by rough sleepers and graffiti; secret squares, dead ends, and grimy passageways.

It closed in June 2013 due to the construction of the newer Library of Birmingham.

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