Very few of us would dispute that thanks to the combined efforts of the luftwaffe, some rapacious property developers and a particularly lunatic and over-powerful chief traffic engineer, Birmingham has its fair share of appalling post war buildings whose demolition would be universally applauded.

Equally, quite a lot of us have a few we rather like and would be sad to see demolished - I'm guessing that few on here would be glad to see the end of Alpha Tower, for example.

So which ones should be kept, and which ones should go at the earliest possible opportunity? Is Birmingham's reputation for concrete so damaging that it needs to get rid of every trace of its post war history, or would that just be repeating the mistakes of the sixties and seventies, when some fine victorian buildings were destroyed just because their style had gone out of fashion and there was a quick buck to be made by some property developers? If there's a middle way, where does the boundary lie?

Of the buildings built between the war and, say, 1995 which (if any) would you want to see kept, which ones would you personally take the wrecking ball to, and which aren't you too fussed about either way?

Well, Alpha Tower has got to stay - it is a beautiful building and fairly unique. And Colmore Gate (I think - the Art-Deco style one on Colmore Row). And the Art-Deco style building that houses Barclay Bank on New St is my fave building in Brum.

I would happily see the Crowne Plaza, the Brown Thing on Hill St, New St Stn and the brick-built council flats at the back of Broad St disappear.

alpha tower and the trotunda should always stay, im also a great fan of 1 hagley road.....

buildings that should go NOW...bt exchange on john bright street and stephenson tower

Central Library,
Bt exchange,
stephenson tower,
Gala bingo hall on John Bright Street,
New Street station,
Villa park (he he)

Keepers :)
Central Library though the conservatoire / fletchers walk must go asap
Natwest Tower
The 80's brown and beige cheiftan Tank IOD building. I think I may be the only one but I like it's eightiesness.
John Bright Street Casino - unusual 50's building which just needs a good clean and refurb
Centre City Tower
The old Bank of England building

Losers :no:
Beefeater between the Mailbox and the James Brindley
Kettle Building between Baskerville and Central Library
New Street Station, BT exchange and stephenson tower
Broadstreet Travelodge
Big Top
Martineau + Toys r us (going already)
the Bullring Tavern Block, the Ice rink, wholesale markets, that huge dirty multistorey car park and Albany House in china town
Lloyd House & Snowhill Plaza
I'd even sugest City Plaza as it's a nothing pedestrian space with a couple of floors of stupidly inefficient shaped offices around a massive circular atrium.
Oh dear that covers about half the city centre


and As we are only going to 1995 I would take a big pot of paint to Martineau Place. Blue steels, Red render, yellow stone cladding and gold witches hats!!! what were they thinking

To stay
BT Tower - I don't care what people say - it's a building! :)
Alpha Tower - Still our tallest office building and ageing gracefully
Colmore Gate - I worked there - nice offices and the glass lifts are cool :)
Centre City Tower. Needs a wash and brush up - I worked there as well. Good views.
Hyatt - Still sexy.
The Weslyan - strangely pleasing.

To go
Lloyd House - Ugly, ugly, ugly.
BT Exchange near HCT - as above (is this still in use?)
Calthorpe House.
New Street Station - what were they thinking?
Snowhill Station - again, as above.
Central Library - for once I agree with Prince Charles - it does look like a place where they burn books!
Nat West Tower - Old, dirty and becoming derelict.

To Keep

Hyatt Broad Street
1 Hagley Road Tower
"Jurys Inn" on Broad Street
5 ways Tower
Alpha Tower
Rotunda
Copthorne Hotel (in front of the C.Library coming from Broad St)

To Go
Travelodge Broad Str
BT Tower
New Street Station
NCP Car park next to HCT
old Queensway cinema/offices opposite HCT
Sentinel Towers
Pavillions
Palisades
City Plaza
Dalton/Lawrence/Stafford Towers (part of aston uni)
Cobalt Sq
The MaClaren Turd
Digbeth Coach St
Wholesale Markets
Calthorpe House
Cumberland House
Crowne Plaza
Trident House
Nat West Tower
West Midlands Police HQ
Central Library
The ghastly office block in front of the C.Library on corner of Paradise Circus

There are probably others that will come to mind about 1 nanosecond after Ive submitted this :)

and As we are only going to 1995 I would take a big pot of paint to Martineau Place. Blue steels, Red render, yellow stone cladding and gold witches hats!!! what were they thinking

Either You dont remember what was there before....or you dislike clean, bright open spaces. Its a 100times better then it was - and couldn't be better!!!

Yes, I remember what was there before and I used to shop at the discount jeans place which used to be there back in the olden days. I completely disagree that couldn’t be better, I think it's dreadful, though I happily admit the public space with the canopy is better than what was there before. That wasn't hard though.

My problem with Martineau place is that it looks like the architects most of their time designing this part and almost ignored the rest. The public space works well, the corners are ok and the Corporation Street elevation is an embarrassment and it's use of colour, finishes and detail is ham fisted.

I met one of the architects and an old dear from the BCC planning department (can't recall names was a few years back) when I was at Uni. Big things were said about this scheme and due to the sensitivities of Corporation Street this elevation of Martineau Place was to have echo’s of a 30's department store. Sorry but IMO it’s failed worse than miserably and is easily the worst building on Corporation Street and it shouldn’t have been.

oh and they play piped musak FFS

Anyway on a lighter note you can get an nice view of Jurys Inn now :)

http://i1.tinypic.com/mwsikx.jpg

Vegas baby!

Sonny wants us to have a skyline resembling something like Swindon's going by his demolition ball!

Whilst not as familiar with all the buildings in the city as some of you true Brummies, I have just listed a small number.

To keep:
- Alpha Tower
- BT Tower
- Centre City Tower (needs a clean up to bring it back to the 1984 whiteness as seen in this pic below)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v176/MartianG/CentreCityTower.jpg
- Central Hall
- Nat West Tower (yeah, I know everyone else hates it and it's coming down but I'm listing it cos I'm biased towards the interesting shape/profile of the thing). Look at it.....the bastard is doomed!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v176/MartianG/NatWestTower2sA.jpg
- Metropolitan House, Five Ways
- Cumberland House, Broad Street (the next office tower after Jurys Inn going towards Five Ways). I like its slab-like curtain wall bulk - definitely has to remain after losing Post and Mail building.


To ditch:
- Stephenson Tower....UGLEEEEEEE!!! OH YEAHHHH!!!!
- Central Library - even if it DOES take its cue from Boston's City Hall (Massachusetts)
- National Indoor Arena - does anyone else really think this building is in any way attractive....?.....sehr häßlich!!!!
- That ugly turd of a Toys R Us thingy near Dale End
- The entirety of the Smallbrook Ringway Centre - well past its sell by date now.
Pallasades [sic] Shopping Centre, New Street Station and the car park.
- Snow Hill Station and the car park - RIP IT UP AND START ALL OVER AGAIN I SAY!!!!
- The Wholesale Markets on Bromsgrove St (and the old Ice Rink MS car park) - they should have been flattened along with the old Bull Ring to be rebuilt completely on the same site. What gives?
- Crowne Plaza Hotel by Alpha Tower
- The entirety of the current ultra-dingy western side of Great Charles Street.
- Digbeth Coach Station - it's high fucking time the new one started to appear somewhere dammit.


and....on a tenuously related note (even though they're not technically buidlings as such)

- Those clapped out 40 year old leaning lamp-posts that line the entirety of the Aston Expressway/Dartmouth Circus slip roads junction going towards the M6/Spag Junc. I'm amazed the city highways department hasn't even thought of replacing them yet whilst every other fucking motorway up and down the land has long had their old crummy 70s lamps superseded with spanking new extra tall lighting columns.....

To Keep

Hyatt Broad Street
1 Hagley Road Tower
"Jurys Inn" on Broad Street
5 ways Tower
Alpha Tower
Rotunda
Copthorne Hotel (in front of the C.Library coming from Broad St)

To Go
Travelodge Broad Str
BT Tower
New Street Station
NCP Car park next to HCT
old Queensway cinema/offices opposite HCT
Sentinel Towers
Pavillions
Palisades
City Plaza
Dalton/Lawrence/Stafford Towers (part of aston uni)
Cobalt Sq
The MaClaren Turd
Digbeth Coach St
Wholesale Markets
Calthorpe House
Cumberland House
Crowne Plaza
Trident House
Nat West Tower
West Midlands Police HQ
Central Library
The ghastly office block in front of the C.Library on corner of Paradise Circus

There are probably others that will come to mind about 1 nanosecond after Ive submitted this :)



I don't get this - weren't you the one lamenting Brum's lack of tall buildings and here you are effectively calling for the removal of a huge chunk of its taller structures that would otherwise maintain its density of skyline? I mean, The BT tower???? Are you insane? That will be the only tall 500ft thingy Brum would ever have at this rate.... and you want it levelled?? And the Alpha Tower too... If they all went we'd be left with nothing, bearing in mind the fact that it's unlikely Brum is going to ever see the day when Arena Central gets built or indeed any towers of over 400 feet high - and even if they do get built, there won't be much more than a couple to even hope to make up for the number of buildings you want to be pulled down! Tell me you are having a laugh here..... :eek: :runaway:

Vegas baby!

Sonny wants us to have a skyline resembling something like Swindon's going by his demolition ball!
:) well not quite as drastic as that: but it mean a fresh start with some superior and better looking 'scraper designs rather than the pic'n'mix averageness we're having to put with from 60s/70s architects. If they can do it with the new Bull Ring they can do it with some of thise old towers

The highway's storage area next to the Aston Express way has just been cleared and herris fenced, so I assume something is about to be built.

On a similar note two separate sets of hoardings have been put up next to McDonalds on Bristol Street. One is for social housing, I don't know what the other one is for (the old Trees pub)

I don't get this - weren't you the one lamenting Brum's lack of tall buildings and here you are effectively calling for the removal of a huge chunk of its taller structures that would otherwise maintain its density of skyline? I mean, The BT tower???? Are you insane? That will be the only tall 500ft thingy Brum would ever have at this rate.... and you want it levelled?? And the Alpha Tower too... If they all went we'd be left with nothing, bearing in mind the fact that it's unlikely Brum is going to ever see the day when Arena Central gets built or indeed any towers of over 400 feet high - and even if they do get built, there won't be much more than a couple to even hope to make up for the number of buildings you want to be pulled down! Tell me you are having a laugh here..... :eek: :runaway:

I anticipated your response to be just so. I just don't like the design/structure of the existing crop. They're just like tombstones ,or slabs of concrete and glass with nothing noteworthy in terms of features. I would rather seem the replaced with half a dozen HCTs if given the choice.

I have a friend who popped over from Canada just before Christmas. She loved most of the city centre but detested some of the buildings, including some of the towers Ive listed, and I concurred. She especially hated the "three sisters" towers at Aston university as being brutal, bland & totally unwelcoming to any student or citizen. And having visited her home of Toronto I must confess she has a point.

a few more HCTs would certainly change a few perceptions: they don't necessarily have to be 30 or 40 floors, but at least something remotely interesting and timeless

Some Post WW2 buildings to Retain: Alpha, Hyatt; ICC; NIA(only, if it is built taller and
another tier added;ATV Centre; ((Post &Mail ex-.
building (R.I.P)); Barber Fine Art Library/Institute
Fine Arts(ok technically opened just before WW2,
but felt obliged to include it); Rotunda; 56 New St
(Barclays Bank tower).

For the wrecking ball: 2 Brindley Place(Lloyds TSB building); Albany House(well ugly);
Big Top; Zinc restaurant(and other bits of 'Glassworks' too);Sta(b) City;
Lloyd House; Mailbox(drafty with a very poor quality ground flr walkway finish);
and that horrid building next door, which is opposite Westside1..now that
building too would probably not be missed either);
STephenson House(Hill street); Tower flats (off King Edwards Road/WestEnd);
Silver Blades/Planet Ice shack; NEC Arena; National Sea Life Centre(IMO
a below par Foster effort for the city to tolerate); UGC cinema complex
Broad Street; Adrian Boult Hall; New street railway station..

'Not fussed': Novotel, Broad street; Central library; 1 Colmore Gate.

PS. Almost forgot the Travel lodge on Broad street, equal first for the dynamite with both Albany and Stephenson towers.

I'm suprised anyone would want to get rid of the mailbox. I suppose they should have made like an 80s mall with low ceilings,sealed from the elements and with a polished indoor flooring or carpet. The pavement like flooring of the mailbox is one of its best features IMO.

Broad St travellodge needs to go, don't care about anything any other building but Broad St Travelodge needs to go.

I am surprised no one has nominated what used to be called the Woolworth Building on New Street as one 'to kill'. It replaced the Theatre Royal, Birmingham's premier theatre in the post-war years, and the former Chamber of Commerce building. In their place this appalling piece of non-architecture was erected to house a Woolworth's store at street level and, presumably, offices above. It was, I believe, a strictly commercial venture by the developer Jack Cotton ─ Woolworth's was seen as a more profitable investment than a theatre that staged opera and Shakespeare! Even though the building has been tarted up with what looks like some sort of external glass lift shaft, and the Woolworth's has long gone (and with it, probably, the name of the building), it remains an ill-mannered, bulky intrusion into the streetscape, a featureless brick eye-sore representing the worst of early 60s architecture. Contrast that with the elegant Grosvenor House across the road (ironically also designed by Cotton and partners, almost a decade earlier), which nestles into the former bomb site on the corner of Bennett's Hill with charm and grace. Definitely one 'to keep'.

I agree vic. I thought about that too but didn't know it's name. The worst view is the back of it from from the Mailbox. It's stepped like a typewritter and it's got a crappy charterhouse sign thing on it.

Another one to keep is Neville House (I think that's what it's called) next door to the chamber of commerce. It's the low, porny, black glass, square one

Neville House is one of my favourite buildings of the period, definately a keeper

I love Grosvenor House too Vic. Welcome btw :wave:

I really hate that 60s one on new street going up to the town Hall on the left with a Pizza Restraunt in it.

I think everyone loves Grosvenor House

Horrible
http://i1.tinypic.com/nc1b20.jpg

http://i1.tinypic.com/nc1ajc.jpg


http://i1.tinypic.com/nc1a2a.jpg

I really like the 80s stealth tank building and it's looks so much better than the faux traditional toss next door

http://i1.tinypic.com/nc1bfp.jpg

That Charters building is vile isn't it? How an architect ever thought "I know what will look good there" or how a planner ever let a building that wasn't in the roofline through is simply beyond me.

Backhanders anyone?

There was a beautiful building where Number 1 Victora Square was built, there was quite a lot of fuss about that one, apparently. But then I like the "faux traditional toss next door", There was some talk about knocking the TSB/Old post Office down too apparently, to build a series of Modernist blocks in increasing height or something. I'm guessing a bit like Masshouse, only 'orrible.

All hell broke loose when they tried to knock the Post Office down. Power to the people!

I supose that Woolworths Building has a certain, art deco style to it, if in a heavy ungainly sort of way, it's the little one next to it, towards the Town Hall end I can't stand.

Jury's Inn looks wonderful, in my 'umble and all that. (edited to add, in fact I've just swiped that nice pic on page one and stuck it on the rate a scraper poll, and then forgot to add the poll bit, d'oh!)

Nat West should never have been built, but now it's up, Not too sure it should go. Not that what I think matters in the great scheme of things.

I marginally prefer the faux-traditional toss next door the 80s stealth tank. The later would be on my demolish list- it just doesnt fit its location.

I knew I'd be the only one who likes that building

The Woolworth building is hideous as is the Argos/Virgin" block the top end of Corp. Street. I know the latter will probably be smashed to rubble but its been a blot on the landscape for at least 20 odd years.

The two-tone brown 14 storey building with hardly any windows behind the Alexandra Theatre needs demolishing immediately!

..... and another would be the red brick office building with the white roof & oversized windows on Paradise Circus next to the Copthorne Hotel. It is only about 15 years old and was a terrible wasted opportunity for a striking landmark building on a prominent site. It looks like it belongs on a cheap industrial park in Brownhills of somewhere similar, not next to important civic buildings in the centre of a city!

Death to Fletchers Walk. Long live Smallbrook Queensway curve!

The old woolworths wouldn't look so bad if it was turned into a hotel and had a complete modern re-clad. The elevator shaft would be worthwile then. The 80's one on Hill St is actually about 1974 I think - looks more modern than 70's doesn't it?

I supose that Woolworths Building has a certain, art deco style to it, if in a heavy ungainly sort of way, it's the little one next to it, towards the Town Hall end I can't stand.

I have been away for the past couple of weeks so this reply is a little dated. I just wanted to show the building that "the little one next to it" replaced. Obviously a hotel when this photograph was taken, but later it became the home of the Chamber of Commerce before it moved to Edgbaston. The horrible Woolworth (Charters) building nextdoor replaced the 2000 seat Theatre Royal, Birmingham's premier theatre of the day. Tragic.
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e173/Beorman/Bldg.jpg

Depressing :(

Ghasty Victorian Over Iced wedding Cake!!!







No, try as I might, I can't see why in gods name they knocked stuff like that down!


PS I like the Big Brown thing on Hill Street, just wait till Brown comes into fashion, you'll all love it again.

IMO it show's how important it is to get the Grand hotel occupied again.

don't know if you are arware of this site http://www.birminghamcivicsociety.org.uk/

I wanna be waving goodbye to Central Library.

Lloyd House is currently being surrounded by new developments providing its image is dull and in need of help. It recently underwent a major refurbishment paid for by the police. What can we do with this building since new highrise developments are starting to surround it?

I wanna be waving goodbye to Central Library.

How dare you! The central library is my favourite building in the whole of the WM except for the Iron Bridge.

Only the library, not the Paradise Forum bit! ;)


As for Lloyd House, I think it could do with a major external redevelopment. It's quite featureless along Snow Hill Queensway so a good clean, maybe some demolition to add some more windows and a reclad and it'll look great.

From vantage point in Cathedral Sq today - two very good postwar buildings - Bank of Scotland building and, of course, the Natwest Tower...why oh why etc etc

Cant they build the new tower on the dismal newish building next door to the current tower instead!

Are you talking about the building between the Council House and the Natwest Tower?! That is the best new building in the city, in my opinion!

Have to agree with Erebus on this one, that buildings fantastic.

Really? Aint it amazing how people's taste can differ. Ah well. Kind of shows how difficult it must be keeping everyone happy when you're in town planning. Personally I dont think it holds a candle to the tower.
But then I liked Post and Mail building.
And Edgbaston Galleries Tower!

It does seem a shame we have to knock down 60s towers in order to get new ones built.

I like Cumberland House too (well apart from the crappy street level stuff)

I full on LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Cumberland House!

I think the building on Colmore Row is fantastic because of how it relates to it's surroundings. It's on the edge of a conservation area, surrounded by listed buildings of various architectural styles and yet it still manages to blend in with all of them. It even works with the NatWest Tower, to some extent. Although the NatWest Tower's days are numbered.

Cumberland House is great. It actually reminds me of 11 Brindleyplace with it's stripy facade. I don't think it's proposed replacement is at all better than it, but it is still a decent design!

I didnt realise Cumberland House was being replaced :(0

I didnt realise Cumberland House was being replaced :(0

It was a proposal from last year, we have heard no more about it since, so I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you, Cumberland House is staying for a while yet.