Results tagged “Rotunda” from Birmingham Post - Lifestyle Blog

Kenneth Wolstenholme is best remembered for uttering "they think it's all over", but the line he intended for 1966 immortality was one he'd practised: "it's twelve inches high, it's made of solid gold and it means that England are World Champions". He'd never get away with it now, as a nation our minds are far too dirty, but that's not my point. A year earlier when The Rotunda was completed, that wouldn't really turn out how architect James Roberts intended either, but for Brummies it became something just as iconic.

Yesterday I attended a screening of Nic Gaunt's film 'Rotunda: 21 Stories', a film ostensibly about the building that stands, er, 21 storeys tall at the bottom of New Street. But, while the film radiates from the Rotunda at its central core, it pushes far beyond that to be a film about identity, family, and how the built environment can help shape the way we feel.

Apart from possibly being the cinematic work that contains the word "round" most often, the film takes time to talk about how Birmingham has been shaped by its architecture and by using only the voices of Brummies and those involved in the building means that it's thankfully free of theories, instead focusing on emotion.

The 21 stories range from the base and James Roberts, with tales of how the building grew taller almost on a whim, to the top, restoration, and a young carpenter who's too scared to work alone in the basement. In between are a host of people talking about, confessing almost, their relationship with a huge pile of concrete and glass and by extension their lives.