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Paradise, Birmingham

Areas of Birmingham, West MidlandsBuildings and structures in Birmingham, West MidlandsGeography of Birmingham, West MidlandsHistory of Birmingham, West MidlandsJohn Madin
Streets in Birmingham, West MidlandsUse British English from December 2016
Chamberlain Square 1
Chamberlain Square 1

Paradise, formerly named Paradise Circus, is the name given to an area of approximately 7 hectares (17 acres) in Birmingham city centre between Chamberlain and Centenary Squares. The area has been part of the civic centre of Birmingham, England since the 19th century when it contained buildings such as the Town Hall, Mason Science College, Birmingham and Midland Institute buildings and Central Library. The site was redeveloped from 1960 to 1975 into the present Paradise Circus based within a roundabout on the Inner Ring Road system containing a new Central Library and School of Music. From 2015, Argent Group will redevelop the area into new mixed use buildings and public squares.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Paradise, Birmingham (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Paradise, Birmingham
Centenary Way, Birmingham Ladywood

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Wikipedia: Paradise, BirminghamContinue reading on Wikipedia

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Latitude Longitude
N 52.4799 ° E -1.9051 °
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Centenary Way

Centenary Way
B3 3AX Birmingham, Ladywood
England, United Kingdom
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Chamberlain Square 1
Chamberlain Square 1
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Birmingham Central Library
Birmingham Central Library

Birmingham Central Library was the main public library in Birmingham, England, from 1974 until 2013, replacing a library opened in 1865 and rebuilt in 1882. For a time the largest non-national library in Europe, it closed on 29 June 2013 and was replaced by the Library of Birmingham. The building was demolished in 2016, after 41 years, as part of the redevelopment of Paradise Circus by Argent Group. Designed by architect John Madin in the brutalist style, the library was part of an ambitious development project by Birmingham City Council to create a civic centre on its new Inner Ring Road system; however, for economic reasons significant parts of the master plan were not completed, and quality was reduced on materials as an economic measure. Two previous libraries occupied the adjacent site before Madin's library opened in 1974. The previous library, designed by John Henry Chamberlain, opened in 1883 and featured a tall clerestoried reading room. It was demolished in 1974 after the new library had opened. Despite the original vision not being fully implemented, the library gained architectural praise as an icon of British brutalism with its stark use of concrete, bold geometry, inverted ziggurat sculptural form and monumental scale. Its style was seen at the time as a symbol of social progressivism. Based on this, English Heritage applied but failed twice for the building to gain listed status. However, due to strong opposition from Birmingham City Council the building gained immunity from listing until 2016.In 2010–11, Central Library was the second-most visited library in the country, with 1,197,350 visitors.

Ruskin Galleries

The Ruskin Galleries was a private art gallery located in what is now Chamberlain Square in Birmingham, England between 1925 and 1940. It provided a venue for the exhibition of modern art at a time when Birmingham's other major artistic institutions were marked by a high degree of artistic conservativism.Birmingham had been at the forefront of the emergence of several radical art movements in the 19th century, but during the early 20th century the city was largely resistant to emergining modernist trends in the visual arts. In 1917 the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists hosted an exhibition of Post-Impressionist works curated by Roger Fry, but it met a hostile reception, with a review in the Birmingham Post condemning its works for their "puerile insanities" and "the unbelievable squalor of their production". An editorial in the Birmingham Post in 1925 asked "Why is it that Birmingham has ceased to count as an important centre of Art?", criticising the RBSA as being controlled by "a small group of men who have arrogated to themselves the responsibility for deciding what is and isn't art ... entirely out of sympathy with modern movements .... having stood still for at least twenty years" The Ruskin Galleries were opened by John Gibbins in 1925 and exhibited work both by local artists and by artists from the international avant-garde. One of the first exhibitions put on by the gallery included works by Matisse, Bonnard and Vlaminck. In 1928 it hosted a nationally-groundbreaking exhibition of contemporary Russian artists, featuring 70 paintings by 15 artists including Filipp Malyavin, Konstantin Korovin, Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov.During the 1920s and 1930s it provided a venue for the local Artist-Craftsmen Group, which evolved into the Modern Group, providing an outlet for the emergence of progressive Birmingham artists such as the sculptors Gordon Herickx and Alan Bridgwater. The galleries hosted a one-man show by Joseph Southall in 1927.The gallery's immediate impact was noted in the national press in 1926: "when Birmingham seemed hopeless and the modernists felt like exiles in the desert, a miracle happened .... Mr Gibbons has almost revolutionised the artistic life of Birmingham".Although its founder John Gibbons died in 1932 the gallery continued to present exhibitions by local and international artists throughout the 1930s and remained open until 1940, when it was closed due to the onset of the Second World War. In November of that year the Birmingham Mail reviewed its influence: "For over a dozen years it has been an institution in the cultural life of Birmingham where contemporary art has been displayed and modern craftsmanship exhibited in greater variety than anywhere else ... more than one painter may be said to have been discovered there."

King Edward VII Memorial
King Edward VII Memorial

The King Edward VII Memorial is a sculpture in memory of King Edward VII, relocated from Highgate Park to Centenary Square, Birmingham, England. In 1910, the Birmingham Mail launched an appeal to erect a statue to Edward VII in order to commemorate his reign. Over £5,000 were quickly raised, and an area within Birmingham Children's Hospital was allocated for its location (then located on Ladywood Road near Five Ways). Albert Toft was commissioned to craft the statue, but the project immediately ran into problems. The statue was to be over six feet tall, making it difficult to find a large enough piece of Carrara marble for its construction. This problem was overcome and the project was well underway through 1912.The statue was unveiled in Victoria Square on St George's Day, 23 April 1913 by Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll. It stood next to a statue of Queen Victoria. However, soon afterwards these statues were criticized as being of "ill matched designs". The statue of Edward VII was moved to Highgate Park when Victoria Square was remodeled in 1951.The statue was the subject of theft in the 1970s and 1980s, beginning with the Saint George's lance and then the three bronze groups in 1985 and 1986, none of which have been recovered. Following successful lobbying by the Victorian Society, Birmingham City Council agreed to restore the statue and re-site it back in the city center. On 12 June 2007, the Society launched an appeal fund to contribute towards the program of works which raised almost £12,000, more than 10% of the final cost of restoration. Work by Cliveden Conservation in Bath began in 2009. A new scepter and orb capital and the three bronzes (representing, respectively, Peace, Education and Progress, and St George slaying the dragon beneath a stylized crown) were re-made, and the monument reassembled on its original plinth. King Edward VII statue was finally placed in its new location outside Baskerville House in Centenary Square in 2013, near other Toft sculptures in the Hall of Memory.