Selfridges, Birmingham - A Building Adorned With Sequins

Selfridges is a century old high end department store in UK whose flagship store on Oxford Street is famous all over the World. In 2003 it opened in a branch in Bull Ring - a major commercial area of Birmingham.

The Selfridges in Birmingham has a unique architecture, which from a distance, makes it look like a billowing organic form with changing colours. This is caused by cladding its curvaceous shape with about 15,000 shiny aluminium discs, each roughly 60 centimetres (2 feet) in diameter. As per the web site of its architect late Jan Kaplicky - Future Systems;

"The skin is made up of thousands of aluminium discs, creating a fine, lustrous grain like the scales of a snake or the sequins of a Paco Rabanne dress. In sunlight it shimmers, reflecting minute changes in weather conditions and taking on the colours, light and shapes of people and things passing by - an animate and breathing form."

Floodlighting at night enhances the beauty of the building. Since its completion it has won eight awards including the Royal Institute of British Architects Award for Architecture 2004 and Destination of the Year Retail Week Awards 2004.

The building is connected to a multi-storey car park across the street through a 37 metre long, curved, polycarbonate-covered suspended footbridge known as the 'Parametric Bridge'.


Image source MSN Bing Aerial View

Image source: Google Street View

Image from Panoramio is by zaheers

Image from Flickr is by stevecadman

Image from Flickr is by ell brown

Image from Panoramio is by Daniel Cort

Image from Flickr is by Wojtek Gurak

The Foot Bridge from the nearby Car Park;

Image from Panoramio is by Steve. Redditch. UK


Source of info: Wikipedia and Future Systems

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