Planning is 50

The school first started above a car showroom in Broad Street - as I recall it was a P. J Evans showroom selling Austin cars. The showroom was situated on the north side and fronted both onto Broad St. and an open “square”, actually a parking area in front of Bush House - a six or eight story post-war building occupied by the Council and in later years occupied in particular by the City Housing Department. The Evans building was a corner building which formed one side of this “square”. All of this has of course been cleared away for the development of Brindley Place.

My connection with the school was as a student of the Birmingham School of Architecture which at that time operated in Margaret Street in the wonderful building still used by Birmingham City University. Once a week during the early part of the course which I attended from 1955 to 1960 we migrated to Broad Street where Leslie Ginsburg would talk to us about what we now call urban design, talks which I found so stimulating. I don’t recall any examinations or tests from his course but I know that it became easier for me to develop ideas in broader brush strokes of architectural design, to consider that architects had a wider responsibility to the community in their approach.

Of course, at that time town planning as a legislative practice was only 10 years old and still considered to be an art practiced by designers (architects, and, amazingly, civic engineers) and the concepts of sociology or economics for example were not part of the mix. As an illustration of this perusal of the Ginsburg Collection at the school indicates very clearly the professional design attitudes then prevalent. Equally, Professor Larkham can talk fluently about the architectural background to and influences on the town planning in the 50’s and 60’s and I recall with pleasures conversations to this effect.

As an architectural student all this suited me down to the ground and even now I enjoy working in the school part time with Professor Chapman in modules to do with urban design. I graduated in 1960 so my visits to Broad Street must have been between 1957 and 1960, probably in 1959 (second year).

After some hectic years as a salaried architect working generally on town centre development projects in the UK I decided to undertake a course to gain a Diploma in Town Planning offered by the school. This was a three year twice weekly evening school course which was held in Gosta Green.

At this time the school was in what is now the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (BIAD) at Gosta Green. The actual accommodation for the school, taken up in the mid 1960’s, consisted of two major rooms and some smaller ones which were actually above the stage in what would have been the scenery fly tower had the stage been in use. The stage was in a theatre area which was never used as it housed the library. The rooms had bare block walls, a fully exposed riveted steel framework, and a noisy wooden floor… I think the diploma course was the only one available - I’m not sure.

There is a nice bit of folklore here concerning Professor Peter Dovell, a wonderfully outgoing and enthusiastic head of school. It became apparent that in view of increasing student numbers the two rooms were not the best way to use space and he asked the local authority if they could be knocked into one. He waited for ages for a response, got none, and so in frustration, during a holiday period, took this fairly large wall down single handedly. After the break we trooped in and were amazed to see what we thought was work in progress. In fact Peter was not a plumber or electrician so stopped work when the wall was down, leaving us to listen to our lecturers through a maze of unsupported radiators, pipes, wiring and conduits, hanging sockets and light switches. As I recall it stayed like this for some months!

Incidentally, the course was heavily staffed by visiting lecturers from practice in West Midlands Planning Offices - sadly I can’t recall their names, but I do recall some permanent lecturers, particularly Geoff Crook, Alan Edgar, Peter himself, Kevin Thomas, (Dick, and a very gentlemanly landscape architect whose name escapes for the moment).

I completed the Diploma course with only one major scare, the dreaded subject of sociology - you know Family and Kinship in Bethnal Green etc. I failed the final year exam twice and was told if I failed once more I would have to leave the course! Happily I spoke with the acting Head of School at that time, Judith Knowles, and she diagnosed that I was in trouble because I was answering the exam questions as an Architect, and NOT as a Planner. Wow. It was the first time I realised that one had to adopt different approaches according to one’s professional background. But it did the trick and at last I passed. Then, amazingly, I was asked if I would apply for the post of a lecturer - and was appointed.

Around 1968/9 the school moved out of the ‘attic’ and settled into a prefabricated single storey building on a site sitting between the canal junction and Aston Road, still very close to the Gosta Green Building. As the Aston Science Park grew the site of the ‘huts’ as they were known was cleared and remains a landscaped bank to the canal.

Although not built for the school it provided ideal accommodation and with an ever increasing number of students and staff (actually up to six) it became home to the school in a way absent before or after as it moved into bigger and bigger shared accommodation. We had our own caretaker, Derek, who arrived from Tamworth every day in his ‘Dell Boy’ Reliant three wheeler and looked after us very well. Mind he was a regular attender at the student parties we were able to host, without the authorities knowing. Probably.

Another bit of home spun folklore centred on a senior lecturer in landscape architecture whose office window was smashed whereupon he scrounged some hardboard and nailed it into place. For a year he politely asked for a new pane of glass, but to no avail. So he requisitioned from the Director of the Polytechnic a new piece of hardboard, using all the appropriate forms, competitive quotations in triplicate ( made up of course), and it worked - within 24 hours he had his new glass.

For most of us moving away from our own little home with its town centre convenience to the remote site at Perry Barr was a wrench. Certainly the professional relationship with students keen to learn was very strong, and there grew a positive interaction which I am not sure survived the move.

So, I think that with a starting date with the school, as a student, in 1967/8, with two stints of teaching, one for 20 years, one for eight years, and still teaching part time for Jean Badman and David Chapman, I am the person with the longest connection with the school (and the most retirements) you will come across! And I have enjoyed all of it. Congratulations to all involved.

Our archive has some photos of early application forms from the 1950s.

Posted by Alan Green on June 6th, 2007 at 12:43 pm in articles.