My Favourite Building – Rotunda

Tracey Stephenson, below, managing director of serviced apartments company Staying Cool, discusses her affections for a building she should know very well.
The Rotunda is a landmark building next to Birmingham’s Bullring and also one of the centres her company operates.

If you would like to take part in ‘My Favourite Building’, please email tamlyn.jones@thebusinessdesk.com.

I’ve loved the Rotunda ever since my student days at ‘The Lanch’ (Lanchester Polytechnic) back in the mid 1980s and my frequent day trips to the big city lights of Birmingham from Coventry.

It was the first circular building I’d seen on such a large scale. I hail from Merseyside and St John’s Tower, in Liverpool, was the biggest I’d seen back then.
And suddenly here was the Rotunda, looming large on the skyline as you left New Street Station, right in the heart of Birmingham city centre.

So imagine my joy then, when Tom Bloxham, chairman of regeneration specialist Urban Splash, asked if we were interested in running a floor of serviced apartments at the top of Rotunda when it reopened, launching in 2008 with 15 apartments on the top two floors.

Over the years, the Rotunda has been hailed as a modern day beacon, a candle in the sky and a giant pill box.

However you describe Rotunda, you certainly cannot miss this wonderful 60s icon. It is so different to most of the lacklustre me-too boxes that litter our city centres today. How on Earth did they get past planning?

It’s also been the subject of much gossip and intrigue. Did the top used to revolve when it first opened? Isn’t there going to be a restaurant at the top with an external rocket lift? Did Survivors film in there?

When Rotunda first opened in 1965 the original architect, James Roberts, conceived it as an office block (although he actually lived on the top floor for many years). Its base housed a bank with vaults and various shops and leisure outlets.

It has had a colourful history since then, from an IRA bombing in 1974 to the threat of demolition in 1993. It was eventually saved by English Heritage and given a Grade II listed building status in 2000. The building then sat empty for a few years until the Birmingham Alliance, owners of the Bullring Estate, approached Urban Splash in 2004.

With the help of Glenn Howells Architects, the two companies turned the defunct office building into a wonderful 234-apartment block spread across 20 floors.

James Roberts returned to the Rotunda for its residential relaunch and was delighted to see it reborn. He especially loved seeing the floor to ceiling windows, which he had included in his original design, finally implemented (they had been replaced with half windows due to budget constraints).

Three years on, I am still mesmerised by the building. And although I love the façade, I am now more enamoured with the new interiors (designed by Glenn Howells and styled by my business partner Paul Taylor) and the way they function as spaces.

As soon as you walk into a room, everything is drawing your eyes to the amazing views across Birmingham.

What’s more, the windows actually slide open just like French windows but at 200 feet up in the sky. That certainly surprises people in today’s world of health and safety; of course there’s a safety pane to stop you falling out!

It’s very quiet and calm at 200 feet up too. I love lying in bed, watching the sunrise and seeing the city spring to life, or seeing it set from the penthouse balcony.
Some mornings you wake up and you are surrounded by a beautiful white mist and no view. Either way, it is really rather magical.

Obviously, I am biased but I really do think that having a small Apart Hotel at the top of Rotunda has added something special to Birmingham’s hotel offering.

The shape of the apartments – imagine Trivial Pursuit wedges – is unusual, the furniture is different to the norm with a 60s twist and, most importantly, it stands for something that is quintessentially Birmingham.

A style icon, a much-loved building. You won’t find anything like it anywhere else in the world.