Head of Birmingham Libraries Service Brian Gambles with the latest in a series of blogs looking at the exciting £193million Library of Birmingham project.
I can report exciting developments on the Library site this weekend, for those who like that sort of thing! Tower Crane 2 arrived and has been successfully erected after a postponement from the previous weekend due to windy weather.
This was a major operation taking up the entire weekend and much of Centenary Square as two large mobile cranes were needed to assemble the eleven components of TC2, which has a 65 metre jib to enable it to reach all parts of the site beyond the reach of TC1.
Apart from serving to emphasise the scale of the project, this now gives a pretty good indication – in the flesh – of the eventual scale of the Library. Its height will be just below the jib of TC1. An impressive landmark indeed.
Rising rapidly from the site now is Core A, which is being constructed using the slipform technique of rapid concrete production, and is now up to the shoulder of Baskerville House. Out of consideration for our site neighbours, Carillion have confined this work to 12 hours each day. Cores B and C will follow.
On a more cultural note altogether, but still on site, this weekend also witnessed “Walking as One” a photographic project led by Rhubarb-Rhubarb but heavily supported by the Library and other partners as a celebration of the Cultural Olympiad launch weekend.
Adam Magyar’s unique use of Olympic “photo-finish” technology will be used to create a fantastic montage of Birmingham people “walking as one”.
This will be unveiled next Sunday (1st August) at 5.30pm in Centenary Square, on the Library hoardings facing the ICC. Thanks to our partners the REP for allowing the walk to take place on stage.
Adam’s work is on show in the Mailbox, and has a wonderful thread of continuity to some of the amazing photographic collections in the Library, notably the work of Eadweard Muybridge, who pioneered in the nineteenth century so much of the technology subsequently used to capture everyday motion – one of his prints will be shown on the hoardings too.
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