New Street, the main Birmingham rail station, is the busiest outside London and, until now, probably the ugliest. Its rebuilding completed in 1970 may have erased the grimy Victorian station, but unlike the contemporary Public Library, also being replaced, has had no defenders. A building quite without rhetoric, though not in the sense the Smithsons would have intended, it was surmounted by a second-rate shopping centre, an early example of British Rail Estate's selling air rights.
Architects FOA, (now succeeded by AZPA) known most of all for their Yokohama Port Terminal, have undertaken a radical rebuilding of the station to be completed by 2015, part of which has recently opened. It already gives the sense of a building that will lift the spirits as well as creating new routes into the station and through the city centre, vital since the station lies at its heart.
Architects FOA, (now succeeded by AZPA) known most of all for their Yokohama Port Terminal, have undertaken a radical rebuilding of the station to be completed by 2015, part of which has recently opened. It already gives the sense of a building that will lift the spirits as well as creating new routes into the station and through the city centre, vital since the station lies at its heart.
 Green wall on new link walk from station to St Martin's circus |  New station entrance from Stephenson Street |