UK - Birmingham - elderly gent in the Bull Ring

Amid post-War inner-city concrete, an elderly man struggles up a slope in Birmingham’s infamous Bull Ring, a development of open-air market stalls, offices and a new indoor shopping centre, the first indoor city-centre shopping centre in the UK. It symbolised everything horrid about architecture in a modern Britain. The words ‘Unspoilt by progress’ seems to be a statement of extreme falsehood, a lie for those using this grim feature of modernism. The market began in medieval 1154 but it was its 1964 regeneration that gave it a reputation of an oppressive urban monstrosity though it was considered the height of modernity. But higher rents meant traders turned away and the public shunned subways and escalators which stopped working regularly. Much disliked by the public it contributed to the popular conception that Birmingham was a ‘concrete jungle’.

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Filename: birmingham_concrete-25-06-1997_1.jpg
Copyright: Richard Baker
Image Size: 4096x2717 / 1.1MB; http://www.bakerpictures.com; elderly ageing old lad man bending bent crooked grim West Midlands Birmingham Bullring architecture sixties 1960s 60s nineties 1990s 90s underpass mural inner-city European Europe EU UK British Britain English England society citizen centre regeneration post-war development industrial struggle pensioner alone lifestyle survival oppressive conurbation Brummy borough council bygone era past failure failing progress concrete renewal intimidating intimidate depressing depressed shopping bleak miserable misery seniors
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Amid post-War inner-city concrete, an elderly man struggles up a slope in Birmingham’s infamous Bull Ring, a development of open-air market stalls, offices and a new indoor shopping centre, the first indoor city-centre shopping centre in the UK. It symbolised everything horrid about architecture in a modern Britain. The words ‘Unspoilt by progress’ seems to be a statement of extreme falsehood, a lie for those using this grim feature of modernism. The market began in medieval 1154 but it was its 1964 regeneration that gave it a reputation of an oppressive urban monstrosity though it was considered the height of modernity. But higher rents meant traders turned away and the public shunned subways and escalators which stopped working regularly. Much disliked by the public it contributed to the popular conception that Birmingham was a ‘concrete jungle’.