Arts & Culture
Loitering with intent
Published 04 September 2000
Urban renewal - Helen Laville on why hanging out in Birmingham has become a pleasure
The British are not a nation comfortable with the concept of "hanging out". It is all very well for cigarette-smoking Europeans or coffee-slurping Americans, but the British are simply not yet au fait with occupying public space as a leisure activity. British people do not hang out; they lurk or loiter or, in youthful, nowhere-to-go gangs, "hang about".
Now, there is a big difference between hanging out and hanging about. One implies the confident occupation of public space as a pursuit in its own right. The other signifies a lack of places to go. That's why hanging about inevitably takes place in the ominous location of street corners.
All this is not really our fault - it is difficult to look cool and confident with rain dripping off your nose. But the weather is not our only enemy: we also lack a culture of functional public spaces in our urban centres. In the city, "space" is often the gaps between commercial rentals, rather than a site in its own right. We have a lack, rather than a location.
We are, however, witnessing something of a renaissance in the creation and use of public space in (sharp intake of breath) Birmingham. This is beautifully expressed, aptly enough, in Bank, one of the city's many new smart restaurants. The menu shows an aerial photograph of the most famous of Birmingham's landmarks, Spaghetti Junction. Poised above it, hungry to dive in, is a fork. This picture symbolises the tremendous change in priorities that Birmingham has experienced in the past ten years. The motorist gives way to the restaurant-goer. Birmingham is no longer a place to drive through or past, but a place to stop and eat.
These changes are part of a significant effort by Birmingham town planners to regenerate a city universally regarded as awful. The central problem of the city stemmed from the way roads were allowed to dominate the city during the 1960s. Pedestrians were forced mole-like into dark tunnels and underpasses. These were so unpleasant, both in aesthetic sensibility and criminal possibility, that pedestrians invariably made the sensible choice and climbed over walls and railings, dodged speeding traffic, or took mile-long detours to avoid the underground route.
Since the 1990s, a new Birmingham has emerged, marked not by underpasses, fly-bys and junctions, but by open squares and broad, pedestrian streets. New Birmingham has been built around public space. You can now walk, unchallenged by the motor car, over the canals in Brindleyplace, through the mall of the new Symphony Hall, into Centenary Square, Paradise Forum, Chamberlain Square, Victoria Square and on to the central shopping district. Around these spaces are the major civic buildings used by both Birmingham's population and its visitors: Central Library, Symphony Hall, art galleries (both the Birmingham and the Ikon), the Rep, the town hall, the register office, the International Convention Centre and National Indoor Arena, as well as numerous hotels, restaurants, bars and coffee shops.
This redevelopment puts public space at the centre of the urban experience in Birmingham. In Brindleyplace, Britain's largest inner-city mixed-use development, the public landscaped square was completed in advance of the buildings. The developers, Argent, assert: "The concern is as much with the quality of space between the buildings as with the buildings themselves. The designers and developers have recognised that what makes the historic city so rich is the array of public spaces that it provides."
On the most basic level, public space is important because of how it makes us feel when we occupy it and pass through it. In providing this atmosphere, Birmingham's new public spaces are largely successful. The landscaped square of Brindleyplace, with its fountain, glass cafe and grass terraces, is distinctly European. Victoria Square is surrounded by buildings weighty with Victorian civic pride, yet it is strangely modern. Not a square in the geometric sense, it seems more open than conventional city squares, its traditional statues blending with modern sculpture. Queen Victoria looks down on her modernist companion, affectionately known as "The Floozie in the Jacuzzi".
Both Brindleyplace and Victoria Square are full - weather permitting - of British people learning to hang out. The many stairs work as a form of seating, allowing a busker in Chamberlain Square to create the all-important amphitheatre. Where the space is privately and commercially owned, as in Brindleyplace, this kind of atmosphere may be enough. However, Birmingham is striving to use its new public spaces in a more imaginative way, creating both a leisure location and a focus for civic activity and education. From its opening in 1993, it was envisaged that Victoria Square would serve as a location for civic ceremonies and open-air events. These can be large in scale, such as the parade celebrating the achievement of Aston Villa (it seemed a little churlish to remind the enthusiastic crowds that their team hadn't actually won the FA Cup). Smaller fixtures, such as the beautiful Christmas Carousel, have their own charm. The Christmas Market and the twice-monthly Farmers Market showcase small-scale local crafts and produce.
Successful use of Birmingham's new civic spaces demands both large ideas from the city council, and the continuation of smaller, private initiatives. Praise has been justly heaped on Gallery 37, currently residing in pagoda-like tents in Centenary Square. The project, modelled on a similar venture in Chicago, trains 140 unemployed young people as paid apprentices in art forms such as ceramics, digital art and textiles. Instead of tucking the project out of sight, there is much value in placing it in public space, where passers-by can observe, enquire about and purchase the art. At weekends, the tent hosts workshops for younger children.
Much of the charm of Birmingham's new public space is in the detail. There remain such habitual users of public space as petition-collectors, pamphleteers and people wanting to know if you ever shop from catalogues. On a more positive note, while I was walking through Chamberlain Square recently, my spirits were lifted through the drizzle by a gospel choir singing on the steps.
Journalists have been bewailing the end of civic space for decades. Replaced by private developments and enclosed shopping malls, public space was dirty, damp and dangerous. Birmingham may not have been able to improve the weather, but it has sought to create public space that is open, clean and safe (many of Birmingham's squares are now covered by CCTV). Compared to the cost of buildings, the creation of imaginative public space is remarkably cheap - Victoria Square cost a mere £3.5m. As Birmingham completes its regeneration with the demolition of the infamous Bull Ring, it continues to emphasise the creation and use of civic space for leisure.
"Quality of life" is a nebulous thing. Birmingham may be getting richer, prettier, less vulnerable as the butt of national jokes. The charm of living here, however, lies less in economic signifiers, aesthetic judgement and civic pride, and more in the imaginative use of Birmingham's urban centre. My four-year-old son, rushing into the square after a visit to the children's library, was enchanted to find pirates and men on stilts ready to greet him. Public space can be theatre - weather permitting.
Dr Helen Laville is a lecturer in American studies at the University of Birmingham
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