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Chamberlain Memorial

Grade II listed buildings in BirminghamMemorials to Joseph ChamberlainMonuments and memorials in Birmingham, West Midlands
Chamberlain Memorial, March 2021
Chamberlain Memorial, March 2021

The Chamberlain Memorial, also known as the Chamberlain Memorial Fountain, is a monument in Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, England, erected in 1880 to commemorate the public service of Joseph Chamberlain (1836–1914), Birmingham businessman, councillor, mayor, Member of Parliament, and statesman. An inauguration ceremony was held on 20 October 1880, when Chamberlain himself was present.

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

Chamberlain Memorial
Chamberlain Square, Birmingham Ladywood

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Wikipedia: Chamberlain MemorialContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 52.479952777778 ° E -1.9041944444444 °
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Address

Chamberlain Square

Chamberlain Square
Birmingham, Ladywood
England, United Kingdom
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Chamberlain Memorial, March 2021
Chamberlain Memorial, March 2021
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Nearby Places

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."

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.

Iron:Man
Iron:Man

Iron:Man is a statue by Antony Gormley, in Victoria Square, Birmingham, England. The statue is 6 metres (20 ft) tall, including the feet which are buried beneath the pavement, and weighs 6 metric tons (6 long tons). The statue leans 7.5° backwards and 5° to its left. It is said by the sculptor to represent the traditional skills of Birmingham and the Black Country practised during the Industrial Revolution. Cast at Bradley and Fosters Castings (now Firth Rixson Castings) in Willenhall, it was erected in 1993 and was a gift to the City from the Trustee Savings Bank, being erected outside the former Head Post Office, which was then their headquarters. It was originally named Untitled, but gained the nickname Iron Man, which Gormley requested be changed to Iron:Man and become the official name for it.It was controversial initially, with early accusations of rusting being explained as deliberate by Gormley when he stated that the type of iron used encourages surface oxidation to protect the underlying metal. When the bank relocated its headquarters to Bristol, some in Birmingham at the time felt the statue should be relocated or removed although, as it was originally a gift to the city, it was left in place.A maquette of the statue used to be at the Public Art Commissions Agency in the Jewellery Quarter, but is now located at the Birmingham Museum Collection Centre in Nechells.The statue was moved into storage in September 2017, to allow the tracks for the West Midlands Metro extension to Centenary Square to be laid, and restored to a new site in Victoria Square in February 2022.