What's Brum's best new building?

Although flawed in many ways, Selfridges is really almost the only recent building in the city with any serious pretensions to being exceptional architecture. There are a few 'okay' buildings scattered around but none of them have the ambition of Selfridges. Generally the city is mired in a tide of architectural tat. Other regional capitals, most notably Manchester, leave Birmingham in their wake.

Jon Bounds has a point regarding the currently unfashionable 60 and 70s architecture. Birmingham also lags behind in this area, as elsewhere in the UK there is a growing appreciation for the good architecture from the post-war period. However, the examples of good 60s buildings in Brum are also few. Yes the library is an exceptional building, which bears comparison with anything in the country from this era, but much of the rest is miserable speculative development, similar in quality to much of the dross being built now. As the planning of the city in the 60s, I fail to see how this can be regarded as anything other than an unmitigated disaster. How can the destruction of the old (I mean medieaval) Bull Ring be seen in any other light?

Best building? Possibly the Blakesley Hall visitor centre in Yardley.

Not sure I regard Centre City or even Natwest (with the exception of the ground floor banking hall) as outstanding pieces of 70s design. My point is that even this list represents a drop in the ocean when seen in the context of the entire city. Where is the good 60s and 70s housing in Birmingham? It is practically non-existant.

The loss of the Post and Mail building was tragic and entirely predictable, given Brum's long history of destroying anything of any value.

I certainly agree the failure of Mike Whitby and his backers to put aside petty party politics and back the Rogers library will come to be seen as a catastrophic strategic error in the history of the city. I strongly doubt the centenary square proposals will ever come to fruition and meanwhile Eastside languishes in muddle and failure. Already the first waves of development down there have either stalled (City Park Gate, which was closely linked to the library scheme) or are living up to the city's long standing tradition of building trash architecture - Masshouse.

Ah well, perhaps Birmingham's greatest tradition is actually its short termism and total lack of design awareness.

The Natwest replacement looks like it might be 'okay' although hardly the groundbreaking piece of design that Britsh Land are claiming.

While the existing building is not great, it is probably amongst the better buildings of its period. Meanwhile there are plenty of other hopeless 70s buildings that I'd gladly see the back of - why not knock them down instead?

Natwest is also the work of Madins, who did the Chamber of Commerce, Central Library and Post and Mail Building (now demolished). Madins were without question the best architectural practice in Birmingham throughout the post war period. Sadly, all the above buildings are under threat. I don't quite understand why we are getting rid of the best buildings from this particular period instead of replacing the rubbish there is out there.

The city desperately needs advisers who are able to guide its decisions on issues like this. Although to the lay person much of the 60s and 70s architecture simply blends into one, this was a period of unprecedented creativity in design and some of the buildings were truly great. Other cities are now recognising this fact and increasingly making creative re-use of their best post war buildings. It seems Birmingham is unable to do this, and that as with so much of its Victorian heritage, the city will thoughtlessly destroy the best parts of its architectural inheritance.

It's just history repeating.

For any one who doubts the growing appreciation for 20th century architecture, please explore the 20th Century Society's website and their Risky Buildings site. There is some great stuff there. Having said that, everyone posting here seems already convinced!

http://www.c20society.org.uk/
http://www.riskybuildings.org.uk/

Thanks Steve. I like the Rotunda too and agree that it is undergoing a much-needed sprucing up. It has looked particularly sad next to the redeveloped Bull Ring. I'm not sure about the BT Tower though - although it is prominent, it's not exactly a useable public space. Perhaps we need to get Sky Sports to change the view of Birmingham they show from the blimp.