People’s Palace’: the £189m Library of Birmingham, which opens on Tuesday
Birmingham officially opened its new public library, one of the largest in Europe, on Tuesday.
At a time when councils across the UK are trimming library services as part of the cuts in public funding, Birmingham city council has delivered a £189m building to grace the city centre.
The building, which has won critical and popular acclaim, replaces the brutalist concrete-clad Central Library, designed by John Madin, the foremost Birmingham architect of the postwar period.
Francine Houben, the new library’s Dutch architect, described it as a “people’s palace”.