the previous century. Such pubs included The Black Horse on the Bristol Road in Northfield which was completed in 1929. Birmingham's first multi-storey block of flats was built in 1937 on the Bristol Road. The building, called Viceroy Close, was designed by Mitchell and Bridgwater in partnership with Gollins and Smeeton. It also features sculptures by Oliver O'Connor Barrett. In the same year, the Art Deco "Petersfield Court" in Hall Green was completed. The building contains 14 flats and consists of large curved corner windows. Post-World War II architecture Birmingham's industrial importance in World War II led to heavy and destructive bombing raids during the Birmingham Blitz. This claimed many lives and many buildings too, but the planned destruction that took place in post-war Birmingham was also extensive. The Public Works Department of Birmingham City Council established a city engineer and a city architect position within the department to aid the design and construction of new housing and public facilities in the city. Therefore, Sir Herbert Manzoni, City Engineer and Surveyor of Birmingham from 1935 until 1963, became profoundly influential in changing the city. His view was "there is little of real worth in our architecture", and in any case, conservation of old buildings was merely sentimental. At the end of war, Birmingham again began to expand and reached a peak in its population in 1951. This produced a demand for new housing to replace that lost in the bombing raids over Birmingham upon the housing needed to meet the requirements for the growing population. As well as this, the increased use of public facilities encouraged their reconstruction and improvement by the city council. This public demand for modern buildings, combined with Victorian architectural styles falling out of fashion, resulted in dozens of fine Victorian buildings like the intricate glass-roofed Birmingham New Street station, and the old Central Library being destroyed in the 1950s and 1960s by the city planners. These planning decisions were to have a profound effect on the image of Birmingham in subsequent decades, with the mix of concrete ring roads, shopping centres and tower blocks giving Birmingham a 'concrete jungle' tag. Manzoni's work included the construction of the Inner Ring Road, Middle Ring Road and the Outer Ring Road, which necessitated the purchase and clearance of vast areas of land. As well as this, he designated large areas of land redevelopment areas and set about clearing