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13 January 2012
Last updated at
16:22
Tributes to Birmingham architect John Madin
Tributes have been paid to Birmingham-born architect John Madin who has died aged 87. He designed many buildings in the city including the Central Library, the BBC's Pebble Mill studios and the chamber of commerce headquarters.
Birmingham Central Library is one of Mr Madin's buildings that has divided opinion over the years. Alan Clawley, who has campaigned to save it from demolition, said some people thought it was a "concrete blot on the landscape", others an "important example of brutalist architecture". It is to be redeveloped after 2013 when services move to the new Library of Birmingham.
Pebble Mill was officially opened in 1971 and was home to the BBC for more than 30 years before it closed when the corporation moved to Birmingham city centre. The building has now been demolished.
Architect Graham Sharp, from Architecture TWS in Birmingham, said Pebble Mill had been a "pleasant building to walk around, it was nice, open, light, airy, it sat well on its site". He described Mr Madin as a "giant, not just in Birmingham, not just in the West Midlands but worldwide".
John Lamb, from Birmingham's Chamber of Commerce, described Mr Madin's work as "prolific" and said it would "leave a lasting imprint on the shape of Birmingham’s skyline in the latter quarter of the 20th Century”.
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