Centenary Square is a public square on the north side of Broad Street in Birmingham, England, named in 1989 to commemorate the centenary of Birmingham achieving city status. The area was an industrial area of small workshops and canal wharves before it was purchased by the council in the 1920s for the creation of a grand civic centre scheme to include museums, council offices, cathedral and opera house. The scheme was abandoned after the arrival of World War II with only the Hall of Memory and half of the planned Baskerville House complete. After the war the scheme was revived in a simpler form however the council never managed to implement the design.
In 1991 the square was redesigned to complement the new International Convention Centre with new paving, railings and lamps designed by artist Tess Jaray, a fountain and several sculptures. During the construction and opening of the Library of Birmingham on the square in 2013 several of the elements of the 1991 design were removed and a library amphitheatre was built into the square. In 2014 a design competition was held to redesign the square. Construction of the redesigned square began in 2017 and was largely complete in 2019.
The square is used as a staging area for many of the city's main cultural events including the Frankfurt Christmas Market, Arts Festivals, Remembrance Day Services, New Year's Celebrations and during Christmas hosts a temporary ice rink and Ferris wheel.
History of the site
Early history
The area where Centenary Square is today was an area of high density housing in the late 18th century. In 1745 John Baskerville built his own home, Easy Hill House in the general area of where now stands Baskerville House. The property comprised a house and outbuildings with formal gardens surrounding it. When John Baskerville died in 1775 he was buried within the grounds of his house. The house passed into the hands of John Ryland in 1788 and in 1791 when it was sacked and burned down by a riotous mob during the Priestley Riots. The house was demolished soon after it was ransacked.
An iron merchant named Gibson purchased the land in 1821 and cut a canal arm through the site in order to increase his mill business on Cambridge Street. The canal was completed in 1825 which in turn encouraged the expansion of other businesses and other canal arms were cut into what is now Centenary Square and the area became one of high density industrial buildings. Baskerville Wharf was cut into the area where the Hall of Memory now stands.
Civic Centre proposals
In 1918, William Haywood published the book The Development of Birmingham within which he proposed a scheme to create a grand civic centre west of Victoria Square. The original concept had provision for a cathedral, two exhibition halls, Natural History Museum, War Museum and memorial, Opera House, new post office and formal gardens. The area was cleared by the council in the 1920s to form the open space of what is now Centenary Square. The first building to be completed was the Hall of Memory and its associated colonnade in 1925, to facilitate this the southern arm of Baskerville Wharf was infilled. In 1926 a competition assessed by Henry Vaughan Lanchester was won by Maximilian Romanoff of Paris, but his scheme was judged too expensive and a basic plan was made by S. N. Cooke, A.J. Swann and the City Engineer Hubert Humphries. In 1936 after Winfields Rolling Mill ceased operations the Gibsons Arm could be infilled paving way for the construction of Baskerville House which was completed in 1938–40. The Second World War halted any further development of the Civic Centre and it remained unbuilt.
Post War development
In 1940-41 William Haywood produced another design for the civic centre, centred on a 42 metre high column topped by a 10 ft statue representing the Spirit of Birmingham. The incomplete Baskerville House would form the east wing of a U-shaped court. The council adopted the design in 1944 and William Bloye produced a maquette on the statue in 1948, but the next year it was abandoned as too expensive. In 1958, Alwyn Sheppard Fidler produced a less formal layout with water features and a line of residential towers linked by a municipal office podium on the north side. The Crescent Wharf tower blocks north of Cambridge Street by the City Architect, Alan Maudsley, in 1968 are a much modified version of its proposed towers.
Bingley Hall which stood at the western end of the square was damaged by fire in 1984. The city council used this as an opportunity to develop the western end of the square into the International Convention Centre and Birmingham Symphony Hall, which opened in 1991 and 1992 respectively.