Queen's College, Birmingham

Paradise Street is a short street in the core area of Birmingham City Centre, in England. Paradise Street runs roughly from Victoria Square to Suffolk Street and Broad Street. The street existed in 1796 when a congregation gathered at a meeting hall for a sermon. Paradise Street is noted as the location of Birmingham Town Hall (started in 1832) and the former site of Queen's College, Birmingham (started 1843) which was the first establishment in Birmingham to grant degrees. The Birmingham and Midland Institute had its first building on Paradise Street (opened 1860) but moved to Margaret Street when the Inner Ring Road (A4400) was developed in the 1960s. The head office building of the Birmingham Canal Navigations was built opposite the western end of Paradise Street. For a few years in the 1960s Birmingham Borough Labour Party had its office at 25A Paradise Street. The street gave its name to Paradise Circus, which lies adjacent.

Town Hall tram stop is a tram stop on Line 1 of the West Midlands Metro located in Birmingham outside the Birmingham Town Hall. It opened on 11 December 2019 when the line was extended from Grand Central to Birmingham Library.In July 2022 the line was further extended to Edgbaston Village.

Birmingham Town Hall is a concert hall and venue for popular assemblies opened in 1834 and situated in Victoria Square, Birmingham, England. It is a Grade I listed building.The hall underwent a major renovation between 2002 and 2007. It now hosts a diverse programme of events including jazz, world, folk, rock, pop and classical concerts, organ recitals, spoken word, dance, family, educational and community performances, as well as annual general meetings, product launches, conferences, dinners, fashion shows, graduation ceremonies and broadcasts.

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.

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.

Birmingham city centre, also known as Central Birmingham is the central business district of Birmingham, England. Following the removal of the Inner Ring Road, the city centre is now defined as being the area within the Middle Ring Road. The city centre is undergoing massive redevelopment with the Big City Plan, which means there are now nine emerging districts and the city centre is approximately five times bigger.

Victoria Square is a pedestrianised public square in Birmingham, England. It is home to both the Town Hall and the Council House, and directly adjacent to Chamberlain Square. It is named in honour of Queen Victoria. The square is often considered to be the centre of Birmingham, and is the point from where local road sign distances are measured. It is a short walk from St. Philip's Cathedral on Colmore Row and is on the main pedestrian route between the Bull Ring and Brindleyplace areas. Three major roads, Colmore Row, New Street and Paradise Street, and others, meet there.

Chamberlain Square or Chamberlain Place is a public square in central Birmingham, England, named after statesman and notable mayor of Birmingham, Joseph Chamberlain. The Victorian square was drastically remodelled in the 1970s, with most of the Victorian buildings demolished and the construction of the Brutalist Central Library. Re-landscaping occurred most recently when the square was closed to the public for five years until March 2021 for remodelling as part of the Paradise scheme.Its features include: Chamberlain Memorial Birmingham Council House (side elevation) Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery Birmingham Town Hall One and Two Chamberlain Square

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."

Victoria Square House, is an office building on the south side of Victoria Square, Birmingham, England. It was formerly Birmingham's Head Post Office, designed in the French Renaissance style by architect for the Office of Works Henry Tanner for the General Post Office. The building was constructed between 1889—1891 and operated as the city's head post office until the 1972 when administrative and sorting office facilities were moved to a new, larger building on Severn Street (since rebuilt as The Mailbox). There were plans to demolish the building in 1973; however after a seven-year campaign by The Victorian Society it was saved. In 1989 the former sorting office was demolished and in 1991 an office development was opened with the former public counter building forming its entrance lobby. The building now provides 160,000 sq ft of Grade A office space over six floors with a floor plate of 27,000 sq ft.

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BM&AG) is a museum and art gallery in Birmingham, England. It has a collection of international importance covering fine art, ceramics, metalwork, jewellery, natural history, archaeology, ethnography, local history and industrial history.The museum/gallery is run by Birmingham Museums Trust, the largest independent museums trust in the United Kingdom, which also runs eight other museums around the city. Entrance to the Museum and Art Gallery is free, but some major exhibitions in the Gas Hall incur an entrance fee.

Big Brum is the local name for the clock tower on the Council House, Birmingham, England. Built in 1885, the clock tower is part of the first extension to the original Council House of 1879 and stands above the Museum & Art Gallery. The clock tower, Museum & Art Gallery and Council House were designed by architect Yeoville Thomason and form a single block. The clock was donated by Follett Osler, a local pioneer in the measurement of meteorological and chronological data. The clock mechanism was supplied by Gillett & Co. of Croydon, and the clock-tower and lofty entrance portico were considered the "most conspicuous features" of the exterior upon opening."Brum" is the local term for the town, the people and the dialect, and the name "Big Brum" can refer to either the clock, the tower or the bell. It is an allusion to the popular name of the clock tower of the Palace of Westminster, which houses the bell Big Ben. The Birmingham clock tower bell also rings with the Westminster Chimes.