Herbert Manzoni

Infobox Engineer


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name = Herbert Manzoni
nationality = British
birth_date = 1899
birth_place = Birkenhead, Merseyside
death_date = November 18 1972
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discipline = Civil
institutions = Institution of Civil Engineers (president),
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Sir Herbert Manzoni CBE MICE (1899 — November 18, 1972) ["Journal of Royal Society of Arts", version 121, 1987, George Bell, page 97] was a British architect and civil engineer known for holding the position of City Engineer and Surveyor of Birmingham from 1935 until 1963. This position put him in charge of all municipal works and his influence on the city, especially following World War II, completely changed the image of Birmingham.

Manzoni was born in Birkenhead and was educated both in Birkenhead and Liverpool. He moved to Birmingham in 1923 and became an engineering assistant to the Sewers and Rivers Department. He became Chief Engineer for the department four years later.

In 1935, Herbert Humphries retired from his post as City Surveyor and Manzoni took over the post at the age of 36. In 1941, Manzoni anticipated the damage that would be caused by the Birmingham Blitz and, in October 1941, announced the creation of four advisory panels within the council to focus upon Housing, Traffic, Redevelopment Areas and Limitation of the city. A 1938 report identified that there was a serious housing shortage that still needed to be addressed in Birmingham. Manzoni launched a city-wide slum clearance scheme, and replaced the housing with high density schemes consisting of tower blocks. He used the Town and Country Planning Act 1944, which he contributed to, to designate redevelopment areas in Birmingham.cite book|author=Andy Foster |title=Birmingham |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2007 |origyear=2005 |edition=2nd edition |series=Pevsner Architectural Guides |pages=197 |isbn=978-0-300-10731-9 ] Manzoni took advantage of the Housing Act of 1936 to designate 267 acres of land in Duddeston and Nechells as a redevelopment area. This was approved in 1950. The first tower blocks to be built in the area were completed in 1954 [cite web |url=http://www.gees.bham.ac.uk/research/cpp/membersfiles/phil/biggerbetter.pdf |title=Bigger is Better? Local authority housing and the strange attraction of high-rise, 1945-70 |author=Phil Jones - Urban Morphology Research Group |publisher=University of Birmingham |year=2002 |accessdate=2007-04-28] and the entire scheme was completed in 1972. He also designated a further four in Newtown, Ladywood, Lee Bank, and Highgate, totalling around 1,400 acres. Together, they contained nearly 250,000 houses that were considered unfit for habitation and they were one half of the entire slum property in the city. The houses were purchased by the council using Compulsory Purchase Orders.cite web |url=http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/ELibrary?E_LIBRARY_ID=61&a=1080741348832 |title=Architecture & Austerity - Birmingham 1940-1950 |month=February |year=1995 |author=Birmingham City Council Department of Planning and Architecture |publisher=Birmingham City Council |accessdate=2008-08-23 |format=pdf]

Manzoni encouraged zoning of areas and redevelopment. He did not believe in the preservation of old buildings and saw their retention for sentimental purposes rather than valuable purposes. This was shown in his work which resulted in the loss of many major buildings such as the Birmingham Central Library and the original Bull Ring.

An urban motorway system was also launched by Manzoni. This had been advocated by William Haywood in his 1918 book, "The Development of Birmingham". Manzoni began planning an Inner Ring Road from 1943, and an Act of Parliament was passed in 1946 allowing construction to commence. The first section, Smallbrook Queensway, was not started until 1957 and was completed in 1960. The entire ring road was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1971. Demolition of Masshouse Circus on the ring road began in March 2002 and further sections were demolished or demoted following it. The construction of the Inner Ring Road had resulted in the demolition of the Market Hall at the Bull Ring, the Central Library, Mason Science College and the Central Technical College. A Middle Ring Road was constructed following this, cutting through the Jewellery Quarter, [cite book| author=Helen Elizabeth Meller |title=Towns, Plans and Society in Modern Britain |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=81 |year=1997 |isbn=052157644X ] and an Outer Ring Road was also designated. Following the demolition of parts of the Inner Ring Road, Birmingham City Centre is now considered to be the area within the Middle Ring Road.

In February 1960, Manzoni was elected president of the Institution of Civil Engineers, a position he served in for 21 months instead of the customary year-long tenure due to the untimely death of his predecessor Arthur Hartley.cite book
last = Watson
first = Garth
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title = The Civils
publisher = Thomas Telford
date = 1988
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pages = p253
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isbn = 0-727-70392-7]

References

s-start s-npo|pro s-bef|before=Arthur Hartley s-ttl|title=President of the Institution of Civil Engineers
years=February 1960 – November 1961 s-aft|after=George Matthew McNaughton end