Birmingham has a brand new, £188 million library right in the centre of the city. It opened at the beginning of September and is already thriving and busy. It seems people will still flock to a library that offers books and journals and magazines and archives in the old-fashioned medium of print. Of course, it also has a couple of cafes and all the digital stuff you could possibly want I'm sure, but strangely I didn't notice because all I could see were bookcases stuffed with books and printed material, and people all over the place reading.
Birmingham has gone in a completely different direction to other towns and cities and has invested in and built a modern temple to reading while almost everywhere else is cutting off its nose to spite its face, closing down libraries or scaling back or making existing libraries unrecognisable as libraries. It's wonderful to see a council flying in the face of fashion and creating what is ironically, without doubt, a style leader in libraries.
This is designed by a woman (hurrah) - Francine Houben - and it's not just a library, it's a landmark and a focal point of a community, too. The masterstroke is to have included two terraces at different levels that are completely free and open to the public. Each terrace has seats and gardens but it's the views that are the big draw; how incredibly clever to have created a place for the people of Birmingham to have access to books and culture and the most amazing views over the city. It's turned the library into a destination and made it an embodiment of all sorts of democratic values.
Who knows how long the exterior will continue to look as beautiful as it does now, with its sashiko-style mesh made up of 5,000+ interlocking metal rings, but it's just beginning to dawn on me that these sorts of buildings are not built to last forever. After all, it's not so long ago that Birmingham demolished its extraordinary Victorian library when it became too small for its holdings. This was replaced in the 1970s by the concrete version by John Madin (see below) which was/is loved by some, hated by many. Despite being regarded as a 'Brutalist masterpiece', this too is scheduled for demolition (hurry now to see it before it is pulled down, already utterly desolate and strange after closing in June this year - it doesn't take long for a building to feel abandoned even though there are businesses still trading inside).
Whatever the future brings, it's clear that as long as taste and city councils allow, this spanking new, sparkling library will act as a magnet, bring people to Birmingham and books, and serve its purpose well. Although it has a certain shelf-life, it sets the tone for a new era of libraries, and for an appreciation of books that will last forever.
[from across the road]
While I was in Birmingham I also saw the very different 1959 Main Library at the University. Underneath the sign someone has put a little sticker saying, 'oh yeah!' which pretty much summed up my Birmingham library experience.
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It's also worth quickly looking at what went before and before. Nothing will convince me that the Madin Central Library is a beauty. This is more a case of 'oh no!':
But the earlier C19 Central Libary would definitely elicit an 'oh yeah!':
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