The Gravelly Hill Interchange, Junction 6 of the M6, otherwise known as Spaghetti Junction, celebrates its 40th birthday this year. An art installation during the Fierce Festival in Birmingham, will offer a unique view of the concrete structure.

It was once famously hailed as “the most exciting project in the history of the road system”.

Whether drivers who use Spaghetti Junction hold it in similar affection is debatable

Elsewhere it has been variously described as an eyesore and the country’s worst concrete nightmare.

Now it is being hailed as a work of art.

An exhibition to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Spaghetti Junction has been created where art lovers can trundle along tracks set up below – so they can gaze up at the underside of the roads high above.

Artist Graeme Miller is bringing his ‘Track’ project to the city following a successful run in Paris.

The interactive installation requires viewers to lie on a board which is then pulled along rails, enabling them to look at the landscape through 90 degrees.

In Birmingham viewers will be able to look up at the criss-crossing roads surrounded by railways, canals and pipes.

The free show has been commissioned for the city’s Fierce Festival, which aims to push the boundaries of art and performance, and opens next month.

Fierce spokesman Annabel Clarke described Track as "a moveable participatory installation", adding: “Face-up and camera-style, participants are moved on a slow, smooth journey along a 100-metre length of dolly track and invited to gaze upwards.

“They undergo a solitary, immersive experience as the landscape is transformed around them.”

Track is an Artsadmin project originally commissioned for Wandsworth Arts Festival 2010 when people were simply pushed along the track beneath a row of trees in a park. The idea has since been featured in Italy.

The free Spaghetti Junction event will be held from 11am-5pm on Saturday, March 31 and Sunday April 1 as part of this year’s March 29 to April 8 Fierce Festival (www.wearefierce.org).

Ms Clarke said: “Public transport will be laid on from Aston and Gravelly Hill stations to help people find their way in and it will all be well signposted.

“There has been a lot of interest from people keen to see a different area of Birmingham being opened up in this way.”

SPAGHETTI JUNCTION
FACTFILE

Spaghetti Junction cost £10.8 million to build and was opened on May 24, 1972. The then Environment Secretary, Peter Walker, described it as ‘‘the most exciting project in the history of the road system’’.

Though best known by its nickname or as Junction 6 of the M6, the Gravelly Hill Interchange project took 11 years to plan and design and four years to build – because it also spans ‘A’ roads, two railway lines, two rivers and three canals.

It was christened with its famous nickname by a journalist at the Post’s sister paper, the Birmingham Evening Mail.

Although it was designed to take 80,000 vehicles per day, the traffic flow was more than 140,000 vehicles per day at the time of its 30th birthday.

A design fault left the concrete and its steel reinforcements vulnerable to attack from the salt used in winter gritting. Even today one large section of the junction is currently covered in scaffolding to facilitate the latest repairs.

It required the demolition of 160 houses, a block of luxury flats, a factory, bank, pub and public toilets.

The 30-acre site has 18 roads supported by 559 concrete columns up to 80ft tall.

Construction involved 13,000 tonnes of steel reinforcement and 175,000 cubic yards of concrete.

It is part of a National Cycle route, with steps down from Lichfield Road to the Birmingham Canal Navigations network.