Centenary Square is a public square on the north side of Broad Street in Birmingham, England, named in 1989 to commemorate the centenary of Birmingham achieving city status. The area was an industrial area of small workshops and canal wharves before it was purchased by the council in the 1920s for the creation of a grand civic centre scheme to include museums, council offices, cathedral and opera house. The scheme was abandoned after the arrival of World War II with only the Hall of Memory and half of the planned Baskerville House complete. After the war the scheme was revived in a simpler form however the council never managed to implement the design.
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.
Brindleyplace is a large mixed-use canalside development, in the Westside district of Birmingham, England. It was named after Brindley Place, the name of the street around which it is built. It was developed by the Argent Group from 1993 onwards.
The Rotunda is a cylindrical highrise building in Birmingham, England. The Grade II listed building is 81 metres (266 ft) tall and was completed in 1965. Originally designed to be an office block, by architect James A. Roberts A.R.I.B.A., it was refurbished between 2004 and 2008 by Urban Splash with Glenn Howells who turned it into a residential building, with serviced apartments on 19th and 20th floors. The building was officially reopened on 13 May 2008.
John Hardcastle Dalton Madin was an English architect. His company, known as John H D Madin & Partners from 1962 and the John Madin Design Group from 1968, was active in Birmingham for over 30 years.
Five Ways is an area of Central Birmingham, England. It takes its name from a major road junction, now a busy roundabout to the south-west of the city centre which lies at the outward end of Broad Street, where the Birmingham Middle ring road crosses the start of the A456.
Although Birmingham in England has existed as a settlement for over a thousand years, today's city is overwhelmingly a product of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, with little surviving from its early history. As it has expanded, it has acquired a variety of architectural styles. Buildings of most modern architectural styles in the United Kingdom are located in Birmingham. In recent years, Birmingham was one of the first cities to exhibit the blobitecture style with the construction of the Selfridges store at the Bullring Shopping Centre.
The Big City Plan is a major development plan for the city centre of Birmingham, England.
103 Colmore Row is a 108-metre tall, 26-storey commercial office building located on Colmore Row, Birmingham, England. Completed in 2021, this building replaced the former NatWest Tower designed by John Madin and completed in 1975. In 2008, a plan by then owners British Land to demolish Natwest Tower and replace it with a taller modern equivalent was approved. This plan never progressed and in 2015 the building passed to the developer Sterling Property Ventures, who successfully applied to have the building demolished. Construction of the new tower began in June 2019 and completed in 2021.
One Snow Hill Plaza is a highrise hotel in Birmingham, England. It is 72 metres (236 ft) tall and was completed in 1973. In 2013 the building was renovated and became a 224-room hotel under the brand Holiday Inn Express.
The Bay Adelaide Centre is an office complex in the Financial District of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The first phase, a 51-storey skyscraper known as Bay Adelaide West, was completed in July 2009. The second phase, the 44-storey Bay Adelaide East, was completed in October 2016. A third tower, Scotiabank North Tower, opened in 2022 and serves the new global head office of Canadian bank Scotiabank.
The CIS Tower is a high-rise office building on Miller Street in Manchester, England. Designed for the Co-operative Insurance Society (CIS) by architects Gordon Tait and G. S. Hay, the building was completed in 1962 and rises to 118 m (387 ft) in height. As of 2023, the Grade II listed building is Greater Manchester's 11th-tallest building and the tallest office building in the United Kingdom outside London. The tower remained as built for over 40 years, until maintenance issues on the service tower required an extensive renovation, which included covering its façade in photovoltaic panels.
The Birmingham Post and Mail building was constructed in the 1960s and was a symbol of the rebuilding of Birmingham, England, following the devastation of World War II.
The V Building was a proposed 51-storey residential skyscraper approved for construction on Broad Street on the Westside of the city centre of Birmingham, England. The tower was part of the larger Arena Central development scheme on the former ATV / Central Television Studios, closed in 1997. The entire development site covered an area of 7.6 acres (31,000 m2). On completion the development was set to include offices, shops, restaurants, cafes, leisure/entertainment, fitness centre and hotel. It was to have been built on the site of a multi-level underground car park next to Alpha Tower, one of the tallest buildings in Birmingham. The total cost of the entire scheme was expected to be £400 million and of the tower, £150 million.
Australia Square Tower is an office and retail complex in the central business district of Sydney. Its main address is 264 George Street, and the Square is bounded on the northern side by Bond Street, eastern side by Pitt Street and southern side by Curtin Place.
Chifley Tower is a skyscraper in Sydney, Australia. It was designed by New York City-based architects Travis McEwen and Kohn Pedersen Fox, with John Rayner as project architect. At a height of 244 metres, Chifley Tower was the tallest building in Sydney from 1992 to 2019. It was surpassed in height by Crown Sydney in 2020 along with the Salesforce Tower and One Sydney Harbour in 2022.
The Mercian is a 132-metre-tall (433 ft) residential skyscraper on Broad Street in Birmingham, England. It is designed by Glenn Howells Architects, the developer is Moda Living and the main contractor is John Sisk & Son.
Snowhill is a mixed-use development in the Colmore business district, known historically as Snow Hill, in Central Birmingham, England. The area, between Snow Hill Queensway and Birmingham Snow Hill station, is being redeveloped by the Ballymore Group. The £500 million phased scheme has been partly completed on the site of a former surface car park adjacent to the railway station and West Midlands Metro terminus.
Paradise, formerly named Paradise Circus, is the name given to an area of approximately 7 hectares 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.
