Not motoring
Secret worlds
Gavin Stamp
Don't Mention The Dome! Criticism of the plastic tent at Greenwich is so con- stant and shrill that one almost feels sorry for the organisers. Almost — for we are soon reminded of the wicked folly of squandering so much public money on something so essentially trivial and mediocre when reading, say, of the theatres which are closing all over Britain for want of a little subsidy or, closer to the home of the Dome, how the Greenwich Observato- ry — something that represents a major British achievement and gift to the world — has now closed. I thought of the absur- dity of the D*** yet again last weekend, for I was in Birmingham, the city that genuine- ly wanted to be the home of the national Millennium celebration — and deserved to be — until overruled by metropolitan arro- gance and myopia. IP. Birmingham is not the most likely subject for the non-motorist except as an object lesson. More than any other city (and there was certainly competition), Birmingham attempted to turn itself into a British Detroit. It worshipped the motorcar, remodelled the city for the driver rather than the pedestrian, and ringed the city centre by a cordon sanitaire of motorways, underpasses and roundabouts. Even in 1960, at the height of his optimism about the new architecture, Ian Nairn could write in his book on Britain's Changing Towns that 'ring roads are powerful instruments. for good or ill, and what they can do in architectural and social terms is, I am sure, quite unappreciated by those who draw them so blithely on a map purely as a means for relieving traffic congestion. Birmingham will, I think, be all right, but it has taken some fearful risks. Splitting the Civic centre was one of them ...' Well, poor Birmingham wasn't all right; the city became a paradigm of all that was drabbest, nastiest and most squalid about car worship and comprehensive redevelopment.
Yet I like the place. Partly because the good humour of the citizens, as well as both some fine and some vigorously ordi- nary architecture, has survived the visions of modern architects and planners, and partly because the authorities themselves have not only recognised their mistakes but are doing something to rectify them. Far from encouraging commercial growth, the ring road now constricts the centre and cre- ates wastelands just outside, so there is that inspired plan to remove much of it, on the principle that, if building roads just gener- ates more traffic to fill them, so, if the roads are taken away, the traffic will disap- pear. And the dreadful roundabouts with their dank, frightening pedestrian under- passes are being rebuilt, so that cars go below and people are restored to the level, where they belong.
I was in Birmingham to see the splendid exhibition about the city's greatest artist, Edward Burne-Jones. The Art Gallery faces the Town Hall, a Corinthian temple designed by Joseph Hansom, inventor of the eponymous cab, and was designed to form part of a civic centre. This centre of culture and learning was spoiled in the 1960s when the neighbouring library was demolished and the ring road cut through behind, but now it is reviving. The public spaces are now enhanced by new sculpture — some good, some execrable but all hav- ing a positive effect — while the civic zone has now been extended across the wretched road to reconnect with the council house and Hall of Memory built in the 1920s. And beyond them are the new concert hall and conference centre, while beyond them is the Gas Street canal basin which is now surrounded by restaurants and bars and is the city's answer to Covent Garden.
The canals, indeed, are one of Birming- ham's great secrets and assets. Londoners may guffaw when Birmingham is described as the 'Venice of the North' but, in a funny way, it is. As in Manchester, canals come close to the city centre, and banks of locks between cliffs of industrial red brick can suddenly be seen below busy streets. And in Birmingham, even Spaghetti Junction — the Gravelly Hill Interchange to you — has its appeal for the non-motorist, for below the prodigal tangle of reinforced concrete flying roadways are railways, and below the railways are canals — different transport systems laid on top of each other like geo- logical strata. On this visit, wanting to see the original terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway in Curzon Street – the surviving Ionic complement to Philip Hardwick's murdered Euston Arch at the other end of the line — I suddenly found I could descend from the road and approach near to it along a canal towpath. And these towpaths are being repaired as public walk- ways as a Millennium project — so much more worthwhile than ... No: Don't Men- tion The Dome.
So brash, much-abused Birmingham is a city with secret worlds. And they are worth exploring. Another can be glimpsed from the brutal motorway that connects the city centre with the M6 at Spaghetti Junction: first a prospect of a Gothic church with a fine spire then, beyond, rising above trees, a fantastic skyline of fancy gables, runs of tall brick chimneys and towers with deli- cate, ogee tops. All this belongs to Aston Hall, one of the finest Jacobean houses in England. From the motorway, of course, it is just an incident in the desolate urban landscape of much of the Midlands, but if you abandon the car and the search for personal mobility, it is a treasure to be enjoyed. For Birmingham Corporation in the 1860s had the wit to assist a public appeal and to acquire the house and grounds for its citizens — so becoming the first local authority to own and preserve a major historic building.
I had almost forgotten just how fine Aston Hall is. It is one of the great houses of Britain, and very well cared for — but who knows it? Because it is not still lived in by an old family or run by the National Trust, because it is in a city rather than the country, it is seldom graced by the presence of the country-house snobs and bores. But it is wonderful. Last Sunday — the last open day of the year — it was being enjoyed by a handful of Birmingham's ordi- nary citizens and, for a time, I had the long, long Long Gallery to myself, with the low, autumn sun cutting across this rich, brown room from its succession of mullioned and transomed windows. On leaving, the prospect from the rumbustious Classical porch was of golden leaves and long shad- ows, and it was almost possible to forget that, just beyond the trees, less than half a mile away, roared the concrete road viaduct on stilts known as the A38(M). I suppose we should be grateful that the architects of 1960s Birmingham did not drive it even closer.
Previous page
