After our big day at the Black Country living history museum, we needed gentler activities for Day 9 of our trip. The Library of Birmingham has a new building with interesting architecture, inside and out.
Makes a big statement in the landscape!
The interior radiates from this rotunda with escalators and books.
A roof-top garden area
The library’s specially-designed room for its Shakespeare collection was built in 1882. Since then, the whole room has been moved twice. The collection outgrew the space long ago, but the beautiful woodwork is too beautiful to abandon, so the room has its own special space on the 9th floor of the new library.
Shakespeare Memorial Room
The round building in this view is the Rotunda, where our hotel room was.
View from the Library of Birmingham
That evening, we went to a movie at The Electric Cinema, the UK’s oldest working cinema. We saw Pride, a good heart-warming story. I’m glad we saw it there because I’m not sure it’s going to be released widely over here.