WHAT'S ON

20 - 23 January 2008
Interiors Birmingham, NEC Birmingham, 8/9

• Visit Interiors Birmingham

Birmingham City University
Birmingham City University will be exhibiting at Design City Birmingham as part of its ongoing commitment to reaching out to industry and to engage with the public in the design debate.  The stand will feature work from academics: Richard Snell, Graham Powell and Marlene Little; all of which are leaders in the field of furniture, product design and textiles.  An extensive portfolio of work in architecture and engineering design from lecturers including Jack Ingram, Simon Andrews and Kevin Singh, will also be highlighted on the stand, along with a showcase of current work from recent graduates.

The stand provides an insight into the range and depth of design rich work coming out of Birmingham through the University and reinforces the range of industries represented in the city for which a design led approach is the key to their future success.

Design Britain
This year Design Britain will relate the history of British design, displaying images of designers and their work at entrances around the event, also promoting exhibitors with British designed or manufactured products through a Design Britain trail.

Design Debate
A showcase of selected British design will start a debate. This will be a shortlist of selected items that the visitors can vote on. The debate will run with a presentation by an editor or nominated designer and kick off an interesting and thought-provoking debate about each design, allowing the visitor to vote for each piece. The product with the most votes will be given as a prize to a randomly selected visitor. This will take place every afternoon during the event from 4-6pm, with Winter Pimms on offer.

20 - 23 January 2008
Birmingham City Centre

Design Pavilion

Unique design consultancy IntheDetail have been commissioned to demonstrate the connectivity of design in the Birmingham region through their relationships with creative individuals and have worked with the chosen companies to design a showcase Pavilion. The Design Pavilion will be installed in the city centre within Victoria Square fro the duration of the event, showcasing the work of 12 local designers including Scabetti, MRF, Pottinger and Cole, Glass Domain and Guinea Pig Design.  The Victoria Square area of Birmingham has significant cultural relevance to the event, due to the locality of the Art Gallery and the newly refurbished Town Hall. The location of the Design Pavilion here, leads into an area of urban regeneration that features examples of the city's new architectural face.

The Design Pavilion is located at the heart of Design City and focuses on creativity paired with professionalism, aiming to present ranges of Birmingham based creative industries working at the forefront of their chosen fields.  Design City not only aims to attract the visitors from Interiors Birmingham, but intends to increase awareness of the local and national creative talent working in and around the city.

City Trail

The Design Trail highlights industrial and retail, historic and iconic studios, showrooms and venues of design interest and excellence in and around Birmingham City......

Brindleyplace
Brindleyplace , B1 2JF
Internationally recognised as a benchmark of urban regeneration, a vibrant leisure and office location now stands on what was once 174ha of mud on the west side of Birmingham city centre.  Ten architecturally striking buildings overlook the regenerated canal network, accommodating 8,500 office workers, 238 hotel rooms and 30 restaurants, as well as bars, cafes, shops, art galleries, a theatre, health club and Sea Life Centre.  Developed by Argent Group, Brindleyplace is still a work in progress, with the final building, a 12-storey office, retail and leisure building at Eleven Brindleyplace, currently at the planning stage.

Oozells Square ,
Brindleyplace , B1 2HS
The Grade II listed building that houses the Ikon Gallery may surprise first-time visitors. While the outside is a perfectly preserved piece of neo-Gothic Victorian architecture, inside it is a modern, steelframed gallery space.  The building was created as a school in the 1870s by architect John Henry Chamberlain, who designed the unusual tower as a functional air-conditioning system, channelling fresh air into the classrooms. It served primary, then secondary school children, then student teachers before it was sold in the Nineties to the gallery, when it was transformed by architect Levitt Bernstein Associates.  As well as the gallery, the building now houses Cafe Ikon, a popular tapas bar.

The NIA
King Edwards Road, B1 2AA
Since it opened in 1991, the city's National Indoor Arena has been host to four million visitors, watching more than 30 different sports as well as ice shows, operas and musicals. Designed by Jim Munn, a pioneer in the field of civic sport and leisure, the NIA incorporated a number of revolutionary ideas, including heated seats, a moveable grass pitch for rugby or football fixtures, and retractable lower seating to expand floor space for cricket and car racing.

The ICC and Symphony Hall
Broad Street, B1 2EA
An area of land in the city's dilapidated canal basin, still bearing the scars from Second World War air raids, was chosen in 1982 to be the home for Birmingham's International Conference Centre and Symphony Hall.  The complex was designed by architects Percy Thomas Partnership and Renton Howard Wood Levin. As well as the conference centre, with its 11 halls holding up to 3,000 people, the practices also designed the 2,000-seat Symphony Hall, which has an auditorium that floats on a bed of rubber bearings to provide optimum sound insulation.

The Bullring
City centre, B5 4BA
The new £500m Bullring development is helping to bring life and vitality to the Eastside quarter. With 140 stores on three main shopping levels, plus a vast markets area, there's something for everyone.  One of the best bits of the area's past, the old market hall clock with four full-size automatons ringing the bell, was destroyed in 1940. The worst bit, which the city is trying hard to forget, was the concrete, brutalist Bull Ring, predecessor of the current shopping centre. With the redevelopment, a long-lost view of St Martin's church has been restored, while the sloping site - it falls close on 15m - has been used to imaginative effect.

The Mailbox
Wharfside Street, B1 1XL
Who would think that a Royal Mail sorting office would end up as a chic and upmarket shopping venue with stylish cafes, restaurants and bars? Whether you love or hate its architecture, you have to admit that the developers have tried and succeeded in converting a utilitarian building into a remarkable and stunning structure. It is the largest single collection of stand-alone designer stores outside London.

Beetham Tower / Radisson SAS hotel 
Holloway Circus, B1 1BT
Designed by Ian Simpson Architects, the 39-storey, 122m-tall Beetham Tower is the most striking new building on the Birmingham skyline, and won the company a Housing Design Award from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The £50m development, which is faced with eye-catching turquoise glass, has the lower 19 floors given over to the new Radisson SAS hotel, while the upper storeys house 152 apartments and penthouses.

Selfridges
The Bullring, B5 4BP
The shining cliff that is Selfridges is one of the most eye-catching buildings in Birmingham. Designed by Future Systems, the four-storey development has a sculptural, organic shape, and is wrapped in a seamless outer skin decorated with 15,000 spun aluminium disks. The £40m building opened in 2003. The inside of the building is also impressive, with a vast atrium to maximise natural light that is criss-crossed with escalators wrapped in sinuous white shapes.

St Martin in the Bull Ring
The Bull Ring, B5 5BB
This Grade II* listed church was the original parish church of Birmingham.  Its tower and spire date back to 1290, but the rest of this early church was demolished in the 1870s and rebuilt by architect Alfred Chatwin, renowned for his gothic style. He built north and south transepts onto the existing spire, making the church considerably larger in the process. A Burne-Jones stained glass window was removed during the Second World War, but is now back in place.  The church has recently been cleaned of the pollution from traffic and grime picked up over the years, and its original pink sandstone is visible again.

Odeon
New Street, B2 4NU
The first of the world-famous cinema chain was opened in Birmingham by Oscar Deutsch in 1930. The picture palace in its heyday saw the organ - complete with organist - rise through the stage floor before performances. For many years it was the pop concert venue in Birmingham. Odeon is an acronym of Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation.

The Rotunda
New Street, B2 4PA
One of Birmingham's most recognisable buildings, the Rotunda is a major city landmark in a prominent position at the end of one of the city's main streets.  The 80m circular tower was designed by architect James Roberts and built in 1964. Rumour has it that the building is capable of rotating - but the rumour is not to be believed!  The only building from the Sixties' Bull Ring development to be integrated into the redevelopment of the area, the Rotunda is now an apartment building.

Grosvenor House
New Street/Bennetts Hill, B2 5RS
An entertaining example of what has been called ‘adventurous architecture', Grosvenor House, now a Grade II listed building, was built for petroleum giant Shell by Cotton, Ballard & Blow in 1953.  The side facing New Street has an undulating feel, which contrasts with the triangular windows facing Bennetts Hill.

Town Hall
City centre, B3 3DQ
The hall, a Grade I listed landmark, was created by architect Joseph Hansom (of Hansom cab fame), and Edward Welch.  The pair went bankrupt during the course of construction, having tendered too low, but despite this setback the building was opened in 1834 as the home for the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival.  The design, faced with Anglesey marble and fossil-patterned limestone, was modelled on the temple of Castor and Pollux in Rome. Extended in 1837 and 1850 by architect Charles Edge, the hall closed last year for a £31m refurbishment that will see it brought back to its original glory, with its 6,000-pipe organ still in place. It is due to reopen in October, managed by the trustees of the Symphony Hall, and will offer concerts again.

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Chamberlain Square, B3 3DH
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery is easily identified by its clock tower, sometimes referred to as Big Brum. It was opened by the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, in 1885, and is home to the largest Pre-Raphaelite art collection in the world, as well as collections of silver, sculpture and ceramics.

Institute of Art and Design
Margaret Street, B3 3BX
The Venetian Gothic-style School of Art was built in the late-19th century by architects John Henry Chamberlain and William Martin, but by the 1990s the college had seriously outgrown its now crumbling Grade I listed building.  Associated Architects took on the job of completely refurbishing and extending the institute, which is part of Birmingham City University - a project that won the practice a RIBA Architecture Award in 1996 and a Civic Trust Award in 1998.

City of Birmingham Council House
Victoria Square, B3 3AA
The council offices for the city are housed in a Grade II* listed building, designed by Yeoville Thomason and built 1874-79 at a cost of £163,000. It was extended almost immediately by Thomason to house an art gallery and museum, then extended again in 1919 by architect Ashley & Newman with a new block to the north, connected by an intricately designed archway.

Birmingham Cathedral
Colmore Row , B3 2QB
This Grade I listed cathedral was completed in 1725, and is a fine example of an English baroque church. It was designed by architect Thomas Archer, enlarged in the late 19th century by JA Chatwin and gained cathedral status in 1905, when the Diocese of Birmingham was created.  Built of brick and faced with stone, it has four world-famous Pre-Raphaelite stained glass windows by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, which were removed for safekeeping during the Second World War and later replaced.  Memorials in the cathedral's churchyard include one to the victims of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings.

The Exchange
19 Newhall Street, B3 3PJ
Birmingham's original telephone exchange is another of the city's fine, Victorian terracotta buildings, with an ornate porch and decorative gate. Look up above street level to see the beautiful decorated gables and filigree work and its pepperpot and Jacobean-style chimneys.

St Chad's Cathedral
Queensway , B4 6EU
The Grade II* listed cathedral was the first Roman Catholic cathedral built in England after the Reformation. It has a neo-Gothic design by Augustus Pugin and was built of red brick and reddish grey stone.  Its narrow floor dimensions are compensated by a soaring roof and ceiling, with curving trusses painted blue and gold sanctuary pillars. The altar is built of limestone, oak and pine, while the 16th-century Flemish pulpit was donated by a Catholic church in Germany.  In 1932, St Chad's was expanded with St Edward's Chapel, which was built in memory of Archbishop Edward Ilsley and his patron, St Edward the Confessor.

School of Jewellery
Vittoria Street, B1 3PA
Right in the heart of the historic Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, part of Birmingham City University, has its School of Jewellery. Part of the building dates back to 1865 and was originally a goldsmith's factory built in the Venetian Gothic style. It became a night school for apprentice jewellers in 1890 and has been used for teaching gold and silver-smithing ever since.In 1994, Associated Architects was commissioned to completely rebuild the school, while keeping the original facade.The light and airy new building won a RIBA Architecture Award in 1995 and a Civic Trust Award the following year.

St Pauls Gallery
94 Northwood Street, B3 1TH
Formerly a carpentry works, this large warehouse-style space is now the largest contemporary gallery outside London, featuring the rising stars of the art world.

Millennium Point
Curzon Street, B4 7XG
Millennium Point is Birmingham's landmark centre for science, technology, learning and fun. The dramatic 37,000 sq m complex, designed by Sir Nicholas Grimshaw & Partners and built at a cost of £114m, marked the start of a £6bn regeneration for the Digbeth area. It is home to Thinktank, the award-winning Birmingham museum of science; the region's only IMAX cinema; Birmingham City Universities Technology Innovation Centre; and the Young People's Parliament. As Eastside's anchor project, Millennium Point initially stood in splendid isolation, cut off from the city centre by the Masshouse Circus ‘concrete collar', but now, with new road and pedestrian routes, it is at the heart of Birmingham

Jewellery Quarter Pavement Trails
City Centre
Two pavement trails, which have been developed by Groundwork Birmingham, provide an opportunity to take a closer look at some of the quarter's ‘secrets'. The Finding Trail Designed by jeweller Laura Potter, this trail reflects both the historic and contemporary aspects of the area. Thirty stainless-steel plaques, based on a design to represent a hallmark tag found in jewellery, contain information and a touch of humour. Each contains a glass cat's eye to represent a gemstone set in jewellery. The Charm Bracelet Trail Artist partnership Renn and Thacker created this trail, which celebrates the area's rich and sometimes unusual history. Taking the form of giant bronze charms, each set in the pavement, the trail starts at the junction of Sandpits Parade and ends at the Chamberlain Clock

Custard Factory
Gibb Square, B9 4AA
By the Eighties, the 2ha sprawl of factories built by custard magnate Sir Alfred Bird a century before was a derelict industrial eyesore. Now, however, the revamped Custard Factory is Birmingham's arts and media quarter, with a dynamic bohemian community of 500 artists and small creative enterprises. The affordable studio workshops are complemented by a theatre cafe, antique shops, meeting rooms, dance studios, holistic therapy rooms and art galleries, plus the Medicine Bar and the Code nightclub. The second phase of the development, which is owned and designed by Bennie Gray, added 100 studio offices, plus a ring of lakeside shops, galleries and restaurants and the Green Man, a towering 12m sculpture made of natural materials.

A Fruitful Crop
Canon Hill Park , B12 9QH
A Fruitful Crop forms part of an exhibition by artist Alistair Grant and associated workshops at mac exploring waste within our society and concerns and impact on our future. This aspect of the project will reflect upon the throwaway culture within public spaces and problems with rubbish and dog waste. A Fruitful Crop will be an installation of rubbish gathered locally and presented within one tree in the park close to mac using appropriate fixings.