BAApp: Walking Architecture is a searchable archive of buildings and tours from across Birmingham including historic, contemporary or conceptual architecture.

It’s an iPhone app built by Substrakt for the Birmingham Architectural Association in collaboration with RIBA West Midlands and the Birmingham & Five Counties Architectural Association. It should arrive in the iTunes store any day now.

If you like that kind of thing, check out OpenBuildings and their mobile apps too.

Now this from the Birmingham City Centre Neighbourhood Forum:

At 10:15am today the first iron work panel was hoisted into place on the front of the building on Floor 2.

They have pics.

Happy 20th Birthday to Glen Howells Architects. They’ve sent us this nice little book filled with photographs from their many projects over the years, including a few familiar buildings from Birmingham’s iconic skyline, such as the Rotunda, The Custard Factory, and Eleven Brindley Place.

Project Brutal: Initial Meeting: 20th April 6:30-7:30pm. CiB Shop.

Project Brutal is a plan to bring together people and networks interested in creatively celebrating and capturing Birmingham’s Brutal library before it’s too late. We’re looking to formulate a series of events and projects under the Brutal banner over an extended period of time.

So if you’re passionate about the library’s architecture, space and history and are keen to find out more and get involved in making this a reality then come and join us on April 20th

You can register your attendance on Eventbrite and follow developments on the Project Brutal website. There’s a tag for Twitter too: #projectbrutal.

The £193m building will tower over Centenary Square with the capacity to accommodate more than three million visitors a year, according to BCC, which is backing the project with £159m in public funds. The concept has been designed by Dutch architects Mecanoo, which has to beg the question why didnt BCC commission a UK based firm to work on the project?

When the building opens in 2013 (which sounds fairly futuristic, but is actually just around the corner) it will be a glass and steel affair containing books, ‘state of the art’ IT facilities and exhibition spaces. The BFI have recently confirmed that the build will be hosting a ‘Mediatheque’, a specific area within the new library complex where members of the public will have free access the BFI’s national moving images archive collection.

Finally, what will happen Central Library? The current 1974 library building was designed by local architect John Madin and based on the design of Boston’s City Hall. Prince Charles described it as “a place where books are incinerated, not kept”.

English Heritage have advised the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport that Central Library meets the criteria for Grade II listing. The Minister for Culture, Creative Industries and Tourism, Margaret Hodge, will now consider all the evidence and decide whether to grant immunity or to list the building.

On Monday they are holding a talk at Town Hall by Klaus Bondam, the Mayor of the world’s best ranking ciy to live in, Copenhagen.

It has an international reputation for its green profile, high quality architecture and public spaces and its leadership in tackling the environmental challenges of urban development.  Klaus Bondam has been working for better urban spaces in Copenhagen throughout his political career. He will talk about his goal for Copenhagen to be the Eco-Metropolis of the world with the best urban environment by 2015. He will discuss his plans to achieve even better conditions for urban life through his Metropolis for People policy, central to which is public participation and dialogue between citizens and experts.

Monday 6th April, 6.00pm, Town Hall, Birmingham All seats £5. students/ under-16′s/ unwaged £3.
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The Visualisation Lab at King’s College London plan to create a “unique, interactive, virtual reality, Cinema History database”

The objective of this first phase was to reconstruct the Kingstanding Odeon, Birmingham, whose 1935 opening represents a key moment in the evolution of purpose-built cinemas

More info here.

Via Tom Lennon

Foreign Office Architects are responsible and there’s all sorts of info (well, corporate-speak and aspirational waffle) on the New Street New Start website.

Here’s another thing to make you go ‘oooh’:

The new library, which at the rate things seem to be going won’t be built in any of our lifetimes (although 2013 has been mooted), is to be built in Centenary Square and will incorporate The REP, who have been quick to report on the appointment.

There’s more info from The Birmingham Post and Property Week.

In the meantime, here’s one Mecanoo prepared earlier – the National Kaohsiung Performing Arts Center in Taiwan:

The urge to find a picture of a building made out of Meccano was very nearly overwhelming.

A project that has been taking shape for the past year is just coming to completion with a film, book and exhibition. The project

records the personal life of Birmingham’s most iconic building, unveiling the many human stories that have influenced and shaped its existence.

The exhibition can be seen at:

• the Central Library (6th floor) from 2 June to 5 July
• Three White Walls Gallery, The Mailbox 14 June to 15 July

The book includes a DVD of the film and is available at The Art Lounge in the Mailbox and at the RIBA Book Shop.

Jon Bounds has covered this in more depth than I could both on BiNS and on his Birmingham Post blog, both of which deserve your attention.