Our Favourite Buildings Kevin McCloud's Favourite Buildings

Date Published:

26/06/2008

Credit: Archaid/Nicholas Kane

For months, Channel 4 viewers voted for their favourite buildings from around Britain. Here are the ten that you liked best…

Selfridges, Birmingham

Future Systems
The Selfridges Building in Birmingham is the most voted-for icon outside of London, and you can see why. Selfridges set out to create more than a new shop. They wanted a building that would be an architectural landmark for Birmingham - and that’s exactly what they’ve got. Completed in 1999 and costing a cool £60 million, it transformed the urban landscape of the new Bull Ring. The RIBA described it as ‘invering the stone-clad norm’, and ‘manipulating form in three dimensions.’

For architects Future Systems it’s a new typology of retail buildings. For everyone else it’s a great shop covered in countless silver smarties, and a brilliant piece of architecture that warms the heart.

Credit: Archaid/Richard Turpin

St. Paul’s Cathedral, London

Sir Christopher Wren
To my mind, there are two curvy, female buildings in London, and St. Paul’s Cathedral is one of them. It’s also considered to be Christopher Wren’s masterpiece. The original cathedral was destroyed in the great fire of 1666, and along with 51 other churches, it fell to Christopher Wren, the commissioner for rebuilding the city of London, to do just that.

But the design you see today was not his first go at it. Attempt number one was not considered grand enough, and number two wasn’t appropriate either. Then, ten years after starting work, Wren came up with a design based on the Latin cross, together with a large dome. Wren started working on St. Paul’s when in his 30s, but he was 78 by the time it was finished. It was well worth the wait.

Credit: Archaid/Nicholas Kane

Canary Wharf Underground Station, London

Foster And Partners
Not all British iconic buildings have an impact on the skyline. In fact, the only trace of this one above ground is a vaulted glass canopy. The real gem is two stories underground. The Jubilee Line’s extension to London’s tubes has given rise to some dramatic architecture at each of the 11 new stations, but none more so than at Canary Wharf.

Foster and Partners’ monumental design adds to the steroid-fuelled feel of the whole area. Twenty escalators carry commuters into its cathedral-sized bowels, but despite its size and the volume of people (at peak times it’s now busier than Oxford Circus) this station never feels anything like it. By bringing natural light underground, and by using a simple palette of fair-faced concrete, stainless steel and glass, this building creates calm where there could be chaos.

Credit: Eric de Maro/RIBA Library Photographs Collection

Brighton Royal Pavilion

John Nash
Love it or hate it, Brighton Royal Pavilion is an extraordinary and magical blend of minarets and mythical symbolism, so it’s no great surprise that it’s made it into this collection of the 10 most iconic pieces of architecture. What is something of a surprise is that had John Nash been as good at investing his inheritance as he turned out to be at architecture, it would never have been built.

Nash did train as an architect, but the vast fortune he inherited meant that he only worked for a short time before moving to Wales. By 1783 he had blown the lot, and when he was declared bankrupt, Nash was forced to start working again. While that wasn’t so good for him, the rest of the country has benefited ever since. He also created Buckingham Palace, Marble Arch and Trafalgar Square.

Credit: Pawel Libera/RIBA Library Photographs Collection

The British Airways London Eye

David Marks And Julia Barfield
Ask a tourist which piece of architecture means ‘London’, and I’ll bet a pound to a penny they say the London Eye. Designed by Julia Barfield and David Marks to celebrate the Millennium, it’s certainly one of the two most loved additions to the skyline in recent years.

For the train spotters amongst us, it’s the largest known object ever lifted from the horizontal to the vertical in one piece. It carries up to 1600 people an hour in 32 pods and takes thirty minutes to circle, rising over 440 feet into the air, which means on a good day you can see Windsor. And of course it is the world’s largest observation wheel. It creates no dirt or pollution on site, and uses incredibly low amounts of electricity in order to rotate. Beyond all that, it is an incredibly elegant structure that seems to cheer up even the dullest day.