Birmingham: Pevsner City Guide

A lively, comprehensive and practical guide to the architectural riches of England's second city. Splendidly varied Victorian and Edwardian buildings make up much of the centre, interspersed with modern monuments such as the Central Library and the iconoclastic new Selfridges. Fascinatingly diverse industrial quarters lie close at hand, ringed by suburbs including the graceful enclave of Edgbaston and George Cadbury's celebrated garden suburb at Bournville.With numerous maps and plans and superb, specially taken colour photographs, this is at once an essential reference work and an indispensable visitor's companion to Birmingham.
This is a detailed, authoritative, and easy-to-use guide to the architectural wealth of England’s second city, the workshop of the world.” Birmingham’s major buildings include its splendid English Baroque cathedral, pioneering Neo-Roman town hall, and still controversial Central Library of the 1970s. Streets of rich and varied Victorian and Edwardian architecture bear witness to an earlier era when Birmingham’s civic initiatives were the admiration of the country. More recently, the city has been rejuvenated with architecture on a giant scale, including the iconoclastic Selfridges and the canalside precinct of Brindleyplace, where Modernism and Classical Revival are excitingly juxtaposed.The guide also explores a variety of outer districts and suburbs, among them the famous Jewellery Quarter, the stucco villas of Edgbaston, and Cadbury’s celebrated Garden Suburb at Bournville. A connecting theme is provided by the local Arts and Crafts school, which flourished well into the twentieth century.