The High Speed 2 terminus in Birmingham, due to open in 2026, will be called Curzon Street Station. It will be a few metres away from the surviving station building of the same name, the oldest in the world, where the first train from London arrived in 1838.
This is a satisfying historical parallel, but unfortunately, its name is one of the few things we know for certain about the new station.
The aerial view published here of what will be the biggest building in the city centre is the only information we shall have about the architecture of the station, at least until the end of this year: no architects’ drawings will be published before then.
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The reason for this is that every part of HS2 is being delivered through a parliamentary Hybrid Bill, which bypasses the normal democratic planning process, meaning that there will be no planning application for the new station to Birmingham City Council.
The city council is seeking the status of a “qualifying authority”, which will enable it to submit its views to the parliamentary select committee which will make the decisions at the end of this year.
Even so, it is uncertain whether this will allow any public consultation on the design to take place. It is quite possible, for example, that conservationists will have no opportunity to comment on how the new station will loom over the Grade I listed 1838 station, from about five metres away (as measured from the rather diagrammatic plans published so far).
The architects for the new station are Wilkinson Eyre. They have an impressive record of big and difficult projects: the Gateshead Millennium Bridge won one of their two Stirling Prizes. Their Mary Rose Museum in Portsmouth was opened last month.
They achieve elegant and inventive solutions to complex problems and, within the limits of what is possible, we can expect them to produce a design of great quality. But it looks likely that we shall not know anything more about this enormous building in the middle of Birmingham until it is approved in the Palace of Westminster.
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What we do know more about are the urban design consequences of the engineering base on which Wilkinson Eyre’s architecture will sit.
This will have a very damaging effect upon the relationship between the city centre and Digbeth. The station will form a 500 metre-long barrier between the two districts: Fazeley Street and Park Street, which currently connect the two, will be buried.
There will be no street connecting Digbeth to the city centre between Moor Street Station and New Canal Street, on which the 1838 station building stands. New Canal Street itself will become a 90 metre tunnel underneath the new station.
This threatened severance is ironic. After the city council announced the Eastside regeneration project in the late 90s, its first action was to demolish the elevated Moor Street Queensway and Masshouse Circus, parts of the notorious “concrete collar” that was strangling the city centre.
The council recognised that no regeneration would take place beyond the ring road until that barrier was removed. We now have a surface level, tree-lined boulevard instead, with bus stops, pedestrian activity, a new hotel completed and other development in Eastside taking place.
The lesson seems obvious, but it appears not to have been learnt. The HS2 terminal will recreate the barrier, just a short distance away.
The explanation is that both the 1960s Queensway and the 2010s HS2 are examples of engineering-driven projects. In both cases, the objective is to optimise movement in one dimension only – along the route – by vehicles: in one case cars, in the other trains.
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All other movements, most critically those crossing the route, are secondary considerations. It was realised soon after the ring road was completed that this was not the way to design a habitable city. The narrow engineering vision had to be replaced with a wider, more inclusive vision, and the city council has since been energetically putting the mistake right. But with HS2, the same mistake is being repeated.
The engineers for the station, Ove Arup and Partners, are also responsible for the redesign of the street network around the station.
Amazingly, one part of this involves the destruction of a significant section of the new Eastside Park, officially opened only three months ago. The park has been a prestige project for the city council. It has gathered a lot of praise for its design, and earlier this month won an RIBA National Award.
This looks like a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.
New Canal Street, which passes between the 1838 station building and the Grade II listed Woodman pub, is proposed to be diverted around the back of the pub, in order to make movement by large vehicles easier.
They will drive through what is currently part of the park, with paving, seats, conifer trees and fountains.
Moreover, the plan makes nonsense of the planning approval which the new owner of The Woodman, Simon Linford, recently gained. His intention was to open up the back of The Woodman in order to connect it to the park. Nobody told him about the new road.
In addition, a large part of the park will be covered by the station’s construction compound for up to seven years. From The Woodman, a new route for construction traffic will be driven through Eastside Park, to connect with Bartholomew Row at the city centre end.
Obviously, any construction project as large as this is going to involve a lot of disruption, over a long period of time. But there does seem to have been a failure of planning and communication in this case.
The principle of investing in the landscape spaces before the buildings are constructed, as happened very successfully at Brindleyplace, is an excellent principle. But it doesn’t seem to have worked with Curzon Street Station.
* Joe Holyoak is an architect and urban designer working in Digbeth