Birmingham: It's Not Shit

Build it, they’ll come

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In a week that has seen the deaths of both Number Six and Khaaaaan! it’s surprising that a 71-year-old architect passing away would inspire so many column inches. It’s even more surprising that BiNS is the place I chose to write about it, but Jan Kaplický has done something great for Brum — given us something that is recognised around the World.

Photo by and © Steve Cooper

You only have to pop over to Flickr to see that the building is very special, a piece of art that inspires others to create. He designed other buildings, like the cigar shaped press centre at Lords, but Selfridges is the one that people point to — and by pointing to that they’re pointing to Birmingham.

It is disappointing to see it from above (from the Rotunda for example) and find that the space-age look doesn’t continue — but from all other angles it shows up other buildings for the boring boxes they are (especially the rest of the of the Bull Ring).

Thanks Jan, and thanks to those that let him plonk the dalek’s bum down in Brum.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 2:35 am by Jon Bounds and is filed under architecture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.