Establishment

The City of Birmingham Education Committee was invited to submit a scheme for the establishment of a polytechnic for Birmingham in 1967 with existing colleges in the city included in the proposals. The City of Birmingham Polytechnic was designated on January 1st 1971 by the then Education Secretary Margaret Thatcher, making it the 27th polytechnic in the UK. It was formed by combining the Birmingham College of Art and Design, City of Birmingham College of Commerce, South Birmingham Technical College, Birmingham School of Music and North Birmingham Technical College.

The first logo of the polytechnic can be seen on this photograph of some of the earliest prospectuses. As can be seen the first logo took inspiration from the side of Baker building!

North Birmingham Technical College gave the polytechnic its Perry Barr HQ. The college had moved to Perry Barr in 1967 having previously been the Aston Technical College. Work on the first buildings for the new campus (Attwood and Baker) began in 1972.

Refs :

The Times, Thursday, Apr 13, 1967; pg. 18; Issue 56914; col A
 
The Times, Friday, Jan 01, 1971; pg. 4; Issue 58061; col A 

Perry Barr before the campus

A view of Perry Barr before the building of the current City North Campus. Wellhead Lane stretches across the top. Some of the houses along that road and the bus depot are still there of course though much else on this photo has long gone.

Origins

Birmingham had its first polytechnic in the mid-19th century when the Birmingham Polytechnic Institute was formed in 1843 but it only lasted for 10 years (we'll return to this institution at a later date). However the current institution dates from 1971 when changes to higher education in Britain led to the formation of a new wave of polytechnics. The City of Birmingham Polytechnic was formed from a number of existing colleges and became the 27th polytechnic formed in Britain.

The centre of the new polytechnic was Perry Barr campus, to this day the centre of the university though it is split across a number of campuses. The current campus buildings date from 1972-3 when the current Attwood and Baker buildings were built. The image below shows the architect models of the original campus buildings.

The below photo shows the site where the Perry Barr campus was built. So you can gain your bearings the greyhound stadium is in the top left and Wellhead Lane heads off to the right from it.

And today of course it looks like this...