Planning and Architecture

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n Britain a better standard of living was enjoyed by most of the population, more people had a disposable income and the young generation provided a ready market for luxury commodities such as clothes, pop records and household paraphernalia.

The Sixties was also a decade which, in its latter half, saw much large scale domestic building, ranging in size and style from massive Le Corbusierinspired slabs to "Scandinavian" high rise tower blocks, many on inner city sites. New requirements in house design incorporated picture windows, central heating, bathrooms, kitchens, porches and balconies. Development by large organisations rather than speculative builders became the norm, resulting in standardised houses and flats with relatively little vernacular reference. This national uniformity spilled out to the peripheries of Britain's major towns and cities. Satellite developments of housing, schools, shopping centres, factories and new universities, irrevocably change the face of these towns and cities.

Interior decoration and furnishing was often a curious amalgam of modem design and junk shop trophies. Synthetic materials; fibre glass and plastic, pushed forward the boundaries of furniture design. Modern designers reflected the space age in fashions, furnishings and fabrics. Ultra modern homes boasted tubular steel, perspex and PVC. Luxuries were seen as necessities as many homes boasted a 'fridge, washing - *j machine and hi-fi system. Fully fitted bathrooms and kitchens were normal requirements and were ^..j often the most "^"~"' important rooms in the *-, **"" house. Kitchens were predominantly modern, * > fitted out with Formica units in --.* olive green or blue. Alternatively, a country style was favoured, with walls of natural brick and quarry tiled floors A whole new generation had a disposable income. Foreign holidays were gaining in popularity and during the late 60s and early 70s. high rise and studio accommodation came to dominate the coasts of Spain. Some of these Continental studio designs came to Britain in the form of houses of bijou proportions. Towards the end of the decade, however, there was a reaction against brash materialism; Eastern mysticism travelled West, bringing wall hangings. Indian prints, incense and patchouli.

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Birmingham embraced the Sixties with typical enthusiasm; the Bull Ring redevelopment by Laing at a cost of 8 million began in 1961 and was opened three years later. It occupied 23 acres and provided upwards of 350,000 square feet of retail space, a 9 storey office block and a bus station. Based on the American mall, the Bull Ring Centre was in the vanguard of the new way of shopping in Britain. Details of a new Central Library were unveiled in 1967; it was to house 1,500,000 books and be "twice the size of the Town Hall". Opening in 1973, it was reputed to be the largest in Europe. In Broad Street, the foundation stone was laid in 1967 of an exciting new repertory theatre, replacing the "Old Rep" in Station Street. Symbolising the new Birmingham City Centre was a novel and individual office block. The Rotunda was erected in 1964 and its 25 storeys formed a landmark which continues to dominate and is still much loved. Equally symbolic of Birmingham was its profusion of road networks; predominantly the Gravelly Hill Motorway Interchange, which came to be known nationally as "Spaghetti Junction". Constructed during the 1960s by Sir Owen Williams and Partners at a cost of 8 million it opened in 1972 and was Britain's first free flow multi-level motorway interchange. Said to be the largest in Europe it sought to emulate and even surpass the German autobahns of the 1940s and 50s.

Construction of the new link to the M6, the Aston Expressway, commenced in 1972. It was vital to take advantage of Birmingham's location in the heart of England and the intention was to create a hub. The extensive motorway developments on a national scale led the Council to re-evaluate and improve the City's arterial roads, ranging from the Birchfields Underpass of 1962 to the upgrading of the Coventry and Stratford Roads. Large scale house building took place during the 1960s on the former Castle Bromwich Airfield site, which was purchased by the City in 1959. The resulting Castle ^_ Vale estate was to accommodate a *** predicted 20,000 people in a , number of high density, multi storey flats, all constructed at relatively low cost. By 1963, there still remained an urgent need to increase the housing stock. An estate for 50,000 people at Chelmsley Wood was begun, but, mindful of growing public opposition, it departed from the high rise format and comprised only 15% of high rise dwellings. Pushing through these changes was the formidable City Engineer and Surveyor, Herbert Manzoni. He was determined that Birmingham should sweep away the slums of the past and replace them with new. clean, dynamic alternatives in the spheres of housing, employment, transport and leisure. His was a comprehensive vision of a transformed city, with clear segregation of traffic and pedestrian, land zoning and an increased efficiency brought about by the Inner Ring Road. The results have been both praised and damned, but Manzoni's intention was to fix Birmingham firmly into the 20th century.

Manzoni's view was not shared by all Birmingham's citizens and a lobby was activated to slow down or even stop the demolition of Birmingham's historic buildings. In accordance with the 1967 Civic Amenities Act, Birmingham Council designated a number of Conservation Areas in and around the City Centre. A Conservation Areas Advisory Committee was set up in January 1970, comprising representatives of the Public Works Committee and Civic Societies. The sense of disillusionment which dominated the popular view of the architecture of the Sixties prevailed until very recently. That the experimental use of concrete and fibreglass failed and the bubble of optimism burst in the late 1960s cannot be disputed but it was with a genuine desire to satisfy social demands for better living and working conditions that Local Authorities attempted to do so. The visionary ideals of providing public housing on a massive scale epitomised the housing drive of the Sixties, following Le Corbusier's dictat of 1936 that the 'benefits of the New Architecture must be widely diffused'. Certainly, in the wake of Le Corbusier and Walter Gropius, architects still believed that their social mission was to provide social housing and radically improve people's lives through design on a large scale. Since the 1960s, this belief has been questioned and there has followed a move away from high rise, high density housing. The massive reconstruction programme of the Sixties has been put into its historical context as a testament to a national commitment of state capital and labour to provide, in a very short space of time, decent working and living accommodation for all. This sentiment must surely not be condemned?

Muirhead Tower Birmingham University

Shenley Court Comprehensive Shenley Fields

Swan Headquarters Coventry Road

SI MATTHEW'S
Perry Beeches

THE ROTUNDA
New Street

AUSTIN FACTORY
Longbridge

Maguire & Murray 1964

James A Roberts 1964-5

Recommended for statutory listing by English Heritage in 1996, this church is unusual in its form. The exterior predicts a more complex shape than the interior reveals. Constructed in an ascending hexagon, the forms on the interior converge to create a single worship space. The interior is striking in its simplicity with pews arranged radially before the altar. The plain brickwork walls are decorated minimally with pre-cast concrete banding and the flooring is covered with polished brick paviours. The original brick font and interior lighting still exist.

Towering 265 feet above the city centre, the Rotunda continues to dominate Birmingham's skyline and retains a special place in the affections of the city's inhabitants. It was the brainchild of innovative local architect James Roberts, who had already designed the Ringway Centre on Smallbrook Queensway. He seemed the obvious choice for the creation of a new building at the end of New Street on what had been a bomb site. The Rotunda's form provides a counterpoint to the rectilinear buildings nearby, while echoing the sweep of the Inner Ring Road and the circular configuration of the Bull Ring. Hidden from general view, its most characteristic period feature is John Poole's spectacular abstract mural in ciment fondu in the ground floor banking hall.

By the 60s, the Austin car factory required increased storage for the newly assembled cars. The solution was an eight storey carpark containing a split ramp with parking on the ramps. The immense length of the building allowed the ramps to rise gently. In 1961 this was the largest of its kind in the world, with a capacity for 3,000 cars. It was constructed using

flat-plate concrete floor slabs with the exterior enclosed with a light balustrading of plasticfaced, embossed aluminium sheeting.

OUR LADY HELP OF CHRISTIANS

Tile Cross

CALA DRIVE/ ESTRIA ROAD

Edgbaston

UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM
Mining and Minerals Engineering & Physical Metallurgy Departments Arup Associates 1966

Sir Giles Scott, Son Partner 1966

John Madin C1962

This rather squat brick structure with its extraordinary roof resembling a crown does not anticipate its breathtaking interior. The crown of the exterior takes the shape of a tent on the interior with its folds of concrete sweeping dramatically downwards from the octagonal roof. This creates a comfortable intimacy without detracting from the drama of the soaring brick east wall. An intensity of light and colour is achieved by the abstract designs in coloured glass. The predominance of blue is counterbalanced on either side of the altar by flame-shaped windows of vivid orange and yellow.

John Madin's collection of houses in Gala Drive and Estria Road has rather a Continental feel. Flat roofed, of buff brick and white wooden panelling, many with balconies, these houses are designed to attract maximum light. They are reminiscent of the contemporary "studioapartments" which began to adorn the Spanish coastal resorts in the 1960s.

The dramatic expansion of British universities in the 1960s brought with it exciting opportunities for architects of the day and the University of Birmingham campus was one of many to benefit. The Minerals and Physical Metallurgy building was considered to be an outstanding example of its kind, winning the RIBA Architectural Award for the West Midlands in 1966 and was statutorily Iistedin1993.lt comprises four blocks linked at the corners to form an interesting grid effect, i.e. two blocks set forward, two set back. Although the building frame is emphatically expressed, its severity is mitigated by the elegant piers and dark, vertical windows. The squarish venting blocks which cap each column give the building a distinctively chunky profile.

mac
Cannon Hill Park

SIGNAL BOX
Navigation Street

Jackson & Edmonds C1964

J. Seymour Harris & Partners 1962

Bicknall & Hamilton c 1966

The early 1960s saw mac (Midlands Arts the expansion of Centre) is designed with Birmingham's business the emphasis on accessibility and flexibility centre westwards along to encourage people into Broad Street and the Hagley Road, as the the Arts. The external Calthorpe Estate finishes comprise random rubble walling amended its development plans to and wire-cut sandfaced allow for new commercial russet brickwork. ventures. Auchinleck Window surrounds and entrance porch jambs are House, one of the first new buildings to be of polished slate, while a erected at Five Ways, warmth is achieved from incorporated a traffic-free orange-red hand made piazza, a second floor car roof tiles. Internally, a park and a restaurant, as variety of high quality well as ten storeys of hard and softwoods office accommodation. produces a distinct Although its internal colour and texture. layout is uninspired, it occupies its corner site with panache: the zig-zag canopy, splayed pilotis and colourful murals by Trewin Copplestone produce a lightness of effect which few other Birmingham buildings of the period can match.

The British Rail modernisation programme of the 1960s necessitated a type of building in which the architecture reflected the new electrified rail network. It combined flexibility of design with speed of construction. The Signal Box at New Street Station accommodated the high technology. Clad with pre-cast concrete units, serrated in profile with an exposed aggregate rib it is cantilevered from columns. The combined effect resembles a 'Jack in a Box'. The Signal Box was statutorily listed in 1995.

BANK OF ENGLAND Temple Row

SI CATHERINE'S OF SIENA Bristol Street

UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM Faculty of Commerce & Social Science Building

Howell Killick Partridge & Amis 1965

Harrison & Cox 1964-5

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A subtle yet striking building of extremely high quality, this office block and banking hall of polished granite and limestone is deceptively complex. Deriving in style from Classical archetypes, it may be described using Classical references. The banking hall rests on a raised terrace (podium), reached by a flight of steps. It is recessed under the upper floors which are jettied out over the podium on clearly expressed beams with projecting ends. There is a symmetrical arrangement of openings with three central doors flanked by slit windows. The five bays on the upper floors are interspersed with recessed cruciform windows. The attic storey is stepped back, a concrete beam pierced with horizontal openings and vertical ventilation Occupying a large corner site, St Catherine's is an impressive asymmetrical building of brick with concrete detailing. A simple recessed entrance is flanked by a circular structure, capped by a copper dome, housing the body of the church. Balancing this, is an elegant campanile. It is relatively unadorned with few concessions to ornament except for a covered open air pulpit. A vertical emphasis is achieved by small windows pierced on each face of the tower. The interior of the church is light and airy with the seating radiating around the altar. A coolness is achieved by the use of pale green, light wood and plain glass. The Faculty of Commerce and Social Science building on the University campus brings a note of space-age fantasy to its surroundings, whilst displaying a concern for organic structure typical of the period. In its final design, a long, slightly curved two-storey block containing lecture halls and seminar rooms adjoins a circular, honeycomb building housing offices which radiate from a central spiral staircase - an unmistakable echo of Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Guggenheim in New York. The intimacy of the building's internal arrangement affords a marked contrast with its brutalist neighbour, the Muirhead Tower (Arup Associates,1969). The building was statutorily listed in 1993.

New Street Station Signal Box Control Room

Inside spread: Wheelright carpark. Photograph: Birmingham City Council Transportation Department. Illustration: J. Smith F.R.I.B.A Outside spread: Spaghetti Junction Longbridge carpark reproduced by kind permission of Architectural Review

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