16 September 2011
Councillor Mike Whitby, Leader of Birmingham City Council, has laid
the last piece of concrete on the highest point of the new Library
of Birmingham at the official ‘Topping Out’ ceremony.
This is a significant marker in the
construction of the new £188.8 million building which is due to
open in 2013.
Mike Whitby, Leader of Birmingham City
Council, said: "I am thrilled to be celebrating the Topping Out of
the Library of Birmingham, a major milestone in the construction of
a very significant new building for Birmingham. For the people
working on the site, and with the project, today is a day of
celebration and reflection on the formidable progress we have made.
Whilst for the people of Birmingham today is about showing everyone
the scale of our ambition - and hopefully giving them a flavour of
just how incredible our new Library will be.
"Through the new Library of Birmingham not
only are we re-defining the role of the Library in the 21st
Century, we are proving that Arts and Culture can be a powerful
catalyst for economic regeneration as well. The fact the project is
already employing 800 people, and should hopefully lever in the
associated developments to employ thousands more, is a formidable
success story for the City."
The Topping Out took place on the roof of the
rotunda on the summit of the building, which will eventually house
the Shakespeare Memorial Room, originally a feature in the
Victorian Library and currently in Birmingham Central Library.
Giles Taylor, a member of the Company of the Birmingham Repertory
Theatre, began the ceremony by reading two Shakespeare quotes
suggested by members of the public in a competition on Twitter. The
Shakespeare Memorial Room will be located alongside a viewing
gallery giving panoramic views across the city.
The Topping Out was also celebrated with
Carillion, construction partner for the Library of Birmingham, and
marked by the first performances in the Library’s outdoor
amphitheatre in Centenary Square, with an appearance by Black
Voices, led by Carol Pemberton, a Face of the new Library of
Birmingham, and by members of the company from the REP, who
performed extracts from Shakespeare and from their current
production, Tom Stoppard’s ‘Travesties’.
Designed by Dutch architects Mecanoo - and
project and cost managed by Capita Symonds - the Library of
Birmingham will comprise ten levels, with nine above ground and a
lower ground floor. It is being constructed using 21,000m3 of
concrete in the frame, enough to fill more than eight Olympic sized
swimming pools. The frame is reinforced by 3,000 tonnes of steel,
the equivalent weight of around 35,750 average UK men. Thirty
thousand metres cubed of material, enough to fill 60,000 bath tubs,
had to be dug out of the basement. There is a core workforce of 800
people building the Library and in total it is expected that 1.6
million person hours will be expended on the project.
In July the Library of Birmingham celebrated
the 100th person supported into work on the project by the
Birmingham City Council’s Employment Access Team. Birmingham City
Council set clear employment and training targets for the project,
aiming to recruit 250 local unemployed people for work and
apprenticeships. So far, 71 people have secured jobs as labourers
and qualified tradesmen such as carpenters, steelfixers,
scaffolders and plantsmen.
Other opportunities have included site
administration, trainee mechanical and electrical engineer and
trainee ductwork erector. Thirty-nine apprentices have also been
recruited and the Employment Access Team are supporting 10 more
young people into Carillion's November 2011 Apprenticeship intake.
Carillion are working with Business Action on the Homeless offering
work experience opportunities, which can lead to full time
employment via the Employment Access Team - the 100th person came
through this process and secured a labouring job with Titan
Ceilings.
The building will feature a spacious entrance
and foyer with mezzanine, the gateway to both the Library and the
Birmingham Repertory Theatre, to which the new Library will be
physically connected. There will also be a new flexible studio
theatre, a lower ground level with indoor terraces, four further
public levels and two outdoor elevated garden terraces.
A 'golden box' of secure archive storage will
occupy two levels of the building, within which the city’s
internationally significant collection of archives, photography and
rare books will be stored. A new state-of-the-art exhibition space
will open up public access to the collections for the first time.
The exterior of the building, from the first to the eighth floor
will be wrapped with an intricate metal façade (above), echoing the
gasometers, tunnels, canals and viaducts which fuelled Birmingham’s
industrial growth.
For more information about Birmingham
Library click here