Birmingham Central Library Risograph Print — Ziggurat Corner

Birmingham Central Library Risograph Print — Ziggurat Corner

£15.00
Skip to product information
Birmingham Central Library Risograph Print — Ziggurat Corner
  • Birmingham Central Library Risograph Print — Ziggurat Corner
  • Birmingham Central Library Risograph Print — Ziggurat Corner
  • Birmingham Central Library Risograph Print — Ziggurat Corner
  • Birmingham Central Library Risograph Print — Ziggurat Corner
  • Birmingham Central Library Risograph Print — Ziggurat Corner
  • Birmingham Central Library Risograph Print — Ziggurat Corner
  • Birmingham Central Library Risograph Print — Ziggurat Corner
  • Birmingham Central Library Risograph Print — Ziggurat Corner
Birmingham Central Library Risograph Print — Ziggurat Corner

1 reviews

A Birmingham memory, in black-and-white Risograph by Spaceplay

Birmingham Central Library Risograph Print — Ziggurat Corner

£15.00

3 FOR 2 ON ALL RISOGRAPH PRINTS

A3 Risograph Print with border
Print Size: 30cm x 42cm (A3)
Print Style: Black and White Risograph
Paper Style: Heavy weight textured cream
Sold unframed and posted in a tube
Based on my original photograpy

An artistic portrayal of the inverted ziggurat the city demolished in 2016. Affordable, sustainable wall art for anyone who still thinks knocking it down was a mistake.

Real printed artwork without the gallery price

Low-impact printing with soy-based inks

Grain and textures perfect for Brutalism

Artisan printed in the UK

SHIPPING + RETURNS

Shipping

All Spaceplay prints are posted within 14 days.

All orders are sent using a tracked postal service, and you’ll receive tracking details once your model has been posted.

UK orders usually arrive within 3 working days after posting. International orders usually arrive within 8 working days after posting, although customs and local postal services can sometimes cause delays.

If you need your order for a specific date, please let me know after ordering and I’ll do my best to help.

UK customers can also select Express Shipping at checkout to have their print  posted within 7 days.

Returns

You can return unused and undamaged items within 30 days of delivery for a refund, excluding return postage costs.

If your model arrives damaged, faulty, or incorrect, please email me within 14 days of delivery with your order number and photos of the issue. I’ll arrange a free replacement to be made and posted to you.
For EU orders Click Here

Building Information

Location: Birmingham, England
Architect: John Madin
Completed: 1974
Status: Demolished 2016
Brief Overview:The iconic Birmingham Central Library, with its inverted ziggurat form, was well established and celebrated as a great example of British Brutalism.  It was not however without its critics- most famously Prince Charles described it as resembling 'a place where books are incinerated, not kept'.  Birmingham City Council had planned to move library services away from Central Library, and lobbied for Immunity from Listing- which sadly was granted.  Despite efforts from English Heritage, Twentieth Century Society, World Monuments Fund and Friends of Central Library-  demolition began in late 2015- two years after closing.

My Risograph Prints

I often go hunting for Brutalist buildings and photograph them wherever I can get to them — car parks, bus stations, university towers, housing estates. Some of the ones in this collection have already been demolished.

 Photographing them is how I collect them; printing them is how I share them.

I think Risograph suits concrete. It's a stencil process: soy-based ink pushed through a drum one layer at a time, soaking into the paper rather than sitting on top of it in a glossy film. You get grain, texture and gorgeous matte blacks, and small variations from one print to the next that mean no two are quite identical. I think this makes it look and feel more like concrete.

Every print is produced with an independent artisan printer here in the UK, on 170gsm Munken Pure Rough Premium paper. The soy-based inks replace petroleum ones — lower in solvents, easier to recycle — and the press needs no heat to fuse them, so it draws a fraction of the power of a laser machine. This makes all of my prints affordable and eco-friendly.

You might also like...

Birmingham Central Library Risograph Print — Ziggurat Corner

John Madin gave Birmingham an upside-down concrete ziggurat for a library and the city pulled it down in 2016. This risograph print takes the corner, where the inverted steps are at their most dramatic and the whole mass seems to lean out over the street. It was never listed, despite several attempts, and there is nothing else like it left in the city. Printed A3 in black and white on heavy textured paper, which is the right material for a building that was all texture and shadow. Birmingham Brutalism, demolished. A3 wall art for anyone who borrowed books there, revised there, or argued for years that it should have been kept — and a gift for an architect who hasn't forgotten what the city lost.