While I was recently in Boston (Massachusetts rather than Lincolnshire) visiting relatives, I had a most welcome chance to observe the United States elections, personnel and process, at first hand. What a stunning outcome it was! Much has been written (to which I will refrain from adding except to express delight) and many parallels drawn.But here I want to draw a different parallel, a much lesser one but nevertheless locally important. This results from the fact that I also had an unanticipated opportunity to reflect on two Birmingham matters. The first concerns the Central Library building and the second concerns the City Council.
The grey eminence of the Central Library (here viewed on the approach from Centenary Square) looms over Chamberlain Square, well and truly blotting the landscape across from two admirable listed buildings, the beautifully restored Town Hall and the fine building in which I have the privilege to work, the Council House. While the staff are magnificent and do a sterling job to give a good service and there are immensely valuable holdings they could do as much in a warehouse. But the Central Library building, the aesthetic equivalent of foul language, unsightly, dysfunctional and deteriorating is not completely friendless. There were pressures to list the Library pile from certain quarters as an example of the so-called ‘brutalist’ school of architecture. I used to work in another dire effort from this genre, the Muirhead Tower at Birmingham University (also ugly, costly, unfit and wearing out) which is now undergoing a prodigiously expensive overhaul. Unbelievably, an architectural body gave themselves an award for this assault on the senses which, much to its credit, the University attempted to resist.And there’s more. When my sons were studying at London University, just round the corner from them was a ghastly sixties concrete garage which, incredibly, is a listed building. Would you credit it! I think that brutalism is not an example of taste, style and capability but a complete absence of these and even of of technical skills or any other desirable quality that you care to name. Pretty much the architectural equivalent of Tracy Emin’s bed. Indeed in my view the Central Library we have now is a bad example even of ‘brutalism’ – the Stalinist skyscrapers in Moscow, while grossly excessive and with challenging fixtures, at least look much better.
The Boston connection comes because the City Hall there (shown at left) was designed by the same architects as Birmingham Central Library. It is the building that I think the Birmingham Post alluded to in a feature a few months ago in connection with Birmingham Central Library. Incidentally, The Public Library in Boston is nothing like their City Hall. It is a very fine building in beaux-arts style built in 1895 and shown in the picture below, taken from across the attractive Copley Square.
Boston City Hall is, however, quite another kettle of fish. Ugly, depressing, dysfunctional – even bleaker inside than out and the recipient of no less than four awards from the architectural industry. Remind you of anything? Put up in 1969 it assumed the functions of the very pleasant traditional City Hall which is, fortunately, still there just round the corner (although now a restaurant and offices).
The Mayor of Boston quite rightly wants to get rid of the sixties shocker and replace it with a building that the majority of people would regard as fitting and at least pleasant. But, wouldn’t you know it, there is a small group that wants to stop this happening – a sort of eyesore support group just as we have in Birmingham for the Central Library. Let’s hope that both cities get rid of their respective blemishes on the civic landscapes. It’s ironic that in Birmingham many fine Victorian buildings were demolished to make way for the late 20th century junk architecture that we are faced with today. In Birmingham I hope that whatever replaces the Central Library is something that citizens will broadly welcome – as they did our great buildings of the past to which they often contributed.
My personal test of a good public building is whether the young people of today will be taking their grandchildren to admire it. This means that not only is it worth looking at but that it will still be there - rather than falling to bits - after just thirty or forty years. The modern approach seems to relish being ‘challenging’ - that is to say divisive – with, at most, 20% of people in favour and 80% or more against. Those proportions need at least to be reversed and whatever buildings are approved from now on should reflect the wishes and tastes of the population as a whole – after all, we’re the ones paying for them one way or another - rather than the arrogant vanities of architects, planners or politicians.
The other matter that I was prompted to think about while abroad is the question of elected Mayors which in England are favoured by the Government and also by Mr Cameron. A large majority of members on Birmingham City Council are rightly against any such change enforced by Government. I won’t go through all the arguments against elected mayors here, particularly the well-known ones about too much power being concentrated in the hands of idiosyncratic individuals, but if it was brought about in Birmingham there would be a greatly diminished Council in the City.
In Boston the City Council has just thirteen members and at the meeting that I attended the business was extremely formal with few contributions from the floor and much of it was pre-digested and went through on the nod or was referred to committees. I have never been a great admirer of confrontational partisan politics, especially of the ugly ‘Punch and Judy’ variety with its bullying aggression still to be found in its most undesirable form in Westminster. But there must continue to be a place for well-reasoned challenge and robust, public debating of important issues in a council’s principal forum. City Councils throughout the country have already suffered extensively from the ‘modernisation’ (for which read ‘Westmisterisation’) imposed under Mr Blair and continued under Mr Brown.
Further vitality must not be drained from our democracy, especially in Birmingham (which has the privilege of being the largest local authority in Europe) and where the meetings of the full City Council are the premier Local Government debating forum. And the long respected role of the Lord Mayor (who brings impartial chairmanship to meetings of the City Council) as the first citizen of Birmingham must be retained - and indeed restored to its full pre-eminence. This I am sure would be endorsed by everyone who has met Lord Mayors in their official capacity over the years, acting in the dedicated manner for which they are renowned. Long may this too continue.
The Mayor of Boston quite rightly wants to get rid of the sixties shocker and replace it with a building that the majority of people would regard as fitting and at least pleasant. But, wouldn’t you know it, there is a small group that wants to stop this happening – a sort of eyesore support group just as we have in Birmingham for the Central Library. Let’s hope that both cities get rid of their respective blemishes on the civic landscapes. It’s ironic that in Birmingham many fine Victorian buildings were demolished to make way for the late 20th century junk architecture that we are faced with today. In Birmingham I hope that whatever replaces the Central Library is something that citizens will broadly welcome – as they did our great buildings of the past to which they often contributed.
My personal test of a good public building is whether the young people of today will be taking their grandchildren to admire it. This means that not only is it worth looking at but that it will still be there - rather than falling to bits - after just thirty or forty years. The modern approach seems to relish being ‘challenging’ - that is to say divisive – with, at most, 20% of people in favour and 80% or more against. Those proportions need at least to be reversed and whatever buildings are approved from now on should reflect the wishes and tastes of the population as a whole – after all, we’re the ones paying for them one way or another - rather than the arrogant vanities of architects, planners or politicians.
The other matter that I was prompted to think about while abroad is the question of elected Mayors which in England are favoured by the Government and also by Mr Cameron. A large majority of members on Birmingham City Council are rightly against any such change enforced by Government. I won’t go through all the arguments against elected mayors here, particularly the well-known ones about too much power being concentrated in the hands of idiosyncratic individuals, but if it was brought about in Birmingham there would be a greatly diminished Council in the City.
In Boston the City Council has just thirteen members and at the meeting that I attended the business was extremely formal with few contributions from the floor and much of it was pre-digested and went through on the nod or was referred to committees. I have never been a great admirer of confrontational partisan politics, especially of the ugly ‘Punch and Judy’ variety with its bullying aggression still to be found in its most undesirable form in Westminster. But there must continue to be a place for well-reasoned challenge and robust, public debating of important issues in a council’s principal forum. City Councils throughout the country have already suffered extensively from the ‘modernisation’ (for which read ‘Westmisterisation’) imposed under Mr Blair and continued under Mr Brown.
Further vitality must not be drained from our democracy, especially in Birmingham (which has the privilege of being the largest local authority in Europe) and where the meetings of the full City Council are the premier Local Government debating forum. And the long respected role of the Lord Mayor (who brings impartial chairmanship to meetings of the City Council) as the first citizen of Birmingham must be retained - and indeed restored to its full pre-eminence. This I am sure would be endorsed by everyone who has met Lord Mayors in their official capacity over the years, acting in the dedicated manner for which they are renowned. Long may this too continue.
To finish on an entirely cheerful note, while in Boston I attended a college game of American Football. The attendance was over 40,000 and the atmospherics and supporting cast of bands and cheerleaders contributed as much to the entertainment as the players - as this short video shows!
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