Back to News Listing

New Birmingham Library creates 250 jobs

26/04/2011

Construction work on the new £188 million Birmingham Library being built on land adjoining The REP is now well underway whilst remaining on time and within budget a year into its construction in the heart of the city centre. The total cost of the project was reduced from £193 million to £188 million last year.

The building in the city’s Centenary Square will cover 31,000 sq ft and will employ up to 250 people when it opens in 2013. Once completed it is set to be the biggest in Europe with the library and theatre joining together and sharing a number of facilities to create a unique centre for knowledge, learning and culture.

Wolverhampton – based Carillion is building the library which was designed by Dutch architects Mecanoo. The development started to move forward after the Government granted Birmingham immunity from the listing of the old Central Library, meaning it did not have to be preserved.

Bosses behind the build have recently released images showing what the new library will look like and the facilities it will feature. These include a flexible studio theatre, a British Film Institute Mediatheque, and state-of-the-art exhibition space for Birmingham’s archives and heritage collections.

The newly-released computer generated images include designs for a central rotunda, looking down through the floors packed with books and a new amphitheatre for outdoor performances in Centenary Square.

The images also show the 10-storey library flooded with light from its glass frontage, with visitors taken from floor to floor on travelators and escalators.

Back to News Listing