The Future 21.10.11

Birmingham Central Library is the main public library in Birmingham, England, managed by Birmingham City Council. The main section, containing the music library, other collections, and Birmingham Reference Library is located on several floors over Paradise Circus, with the main entrance and lending library in a wing fronting Chamberlain Square.
Architecture
The current building was opened in 1974 and is the third library in the vicinity. It was designed by John Madin, a Birmingham architect and its inverted ziggurat form is a powerful example of the Brutalist style. With the Rotunda tower and the Alpha Tower, it is one of Birmingham's key Modernist buildings.
The Central Library is a complex multi-level structure which extends below the Centenary Square ground level to form part of a busy junction (Paradise Circus) on the Inner Ring Road and was to have included a bus station at the road level, although this was never provided. Originally it was intended that the Central Library would be set in landscaped gardens, with five pools, and that Centenary Square could be extended at full width to the library. However, the sale of the land upon which the Copthorne Hotel and Chamberlain House now stand has frustrated this objective. When built, the main Central Library building was open to pedestrians at ground level making a generous public link between Chamberlain Square and Centenary Square, albeit with a pedestrian subway (since replaced by a bridge) to what is now Centenary Square. This space was roofed and enclosed in 1989 after the footbridge (which carries 11.8m people a year) was built and the inner ring road lowered as part of improvements to pedestrian access to Centenary Square. The area now forms Paradise Forum, containing bars, restaurants and shops and open as a pedestrian route, 24 hours a day.
The appearance of the library building has been much criticised, mostly due to the staining of the stone chip and concrete cladding panels which have not been cleaned or replaced with stone cladding (as was originally proposed). The building has famously been described by Prince Charles as "looking more like a place for burning books, than keeping them". Nonetheless, the Twentieth Century Society is leading a campaign for its retention.
Architectural commentator Jonathan Glancey described the building in the The Guardian in 2003:
The great inverted ziggurat of Birmingham, and its 30 miles of bookshelves … owes its curious profile to US precedent, not to commercial design. Its architect, John Madin, a home-grown talent, based its design on that of Kallman, McKinnell and Knowles's Boston City Hall (1963-68). It has real presence, and it is not hard to imagine it being transformed, with the help of sympathetic and imaginative architects, artists and designers, into a popular hub of fresh cultural activity.

Originally, it was meant to have stood amid water gardens rather than burger bars, which would have softened the blow of its muscular design … Shopping mall and McDonald's aside, the building is a generously thought out piece. And, despite the case against it, the council is rather proud of the fact that the library remains, and will do so right up to the point of demolition, the city's busiest public building, attracting over 5,000 visitors a day.
Argent Group PLC acquired Paradise Forum and Chamberlain House at Paradise Circus in 2004.[2] Together with major landowners, it says it is working to improve the environment around Paradise Circus. It has produced a masterplan study in conjunction with Birmingham City Council and the University of Central England that would potentially create a 2,200,000 sq ft (200,000 m2) mixed use scheme for the site. Argent states that it has invested £2 million in a refurbishment programme to "improve the physical environment, offer an improved mix of facilities and create a safe and bright pedestrian thoroughfare under the Argent management regime implemented at Brindleyplace".
The northern part of the pedestrian level peters out in a temporary steel staircase, descending to road level.
The City Council proposes to demolish the existing central library building so that a pedestrian street axis extending from Centenary Square to the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery can be formed. As part of the scheme, a new Library of Birmingham began construction in January 2010 on Centenary Square beside the Birmingham Rep theatre.