Friday Photo: Civic Centre Tower Blocks

This Friday photo is of the four civic centre tower blocks in Civic Close and Brindley Drive.  In the post war era the new solution to the social housing crisis sweeping the country, was that of the high rise “tower block”.  As Birmingham’s planner of the era had a love affair with concrete, they whole heartened embraced this new trend, and in total built 464 high rise blocks in the 60’s and early 70’s.

Taken from roof of the new library, the four towers pictured are, (from right to left) Galton, Norton, Crescent and Cambridge.  They were built in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s. In the new millennium, as many tower blocks were beginning to get demolished, Birmingham Council chose these four to be upgraded.  In 2006 around £140,000 was spent on each tower and they were reclad with the old balconies removed and new double glazing added throughout.

For anyone interested in reading more about tower blocks around the UK, the following website http://towerblock.org/  is a great resource. It’s a new online resource housing some of the research undertaken by Miles Glendinning and Stefan Muthesius for their 1994 book Tower Block.