Shopping: Grand Designs for for home interiors
Oct 4 2010 By Emma McKinney
With Grand Designs Live set to arrive in Birmingham this week, presenter of the TV show Kevin McCloud tells Consumer Editor Emma McKinney how the city has “blobitecture” and Midland kiln-formed glass artist Kim Bramley explains why she’s all fired up for the event
MANY people may not know it, but Birmingham is a prime example of “blobitecture”.
Well, that’s according to architecture guru Kevin McCloud, who will arrive at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre on Friday for the three-day Grand Designs Live, which will see hundreds of exhibitors flogging everything and anything needed to design and furnish visitors’ properties.
The three-day event is based on hit Channel Four TV programme Grand Designs, presented by Kevin, which sees him following the progress of those brave enough to design and build their own dream homes.
And the 52-year-old says he is looking forward to returning to the city.
“Birmingham was one of the country’s first cities to exhibit the blobitecture style – which means buildings that have an organic, amoeba-shaped bulging form – with the construction of the Selfridges store at Bullring shopping centre,” he says.
“Although I’m not a huge fan of the blobitecture style, I am a fan of architecture which is delightful and which is responsive to where it is. There is, in every city, room for great iconic buildings and the Selfridges building in Birmingham has had that kind of impact – it had that Bilbao effect that every city in the world now wants because they sort of equate it with economic regeneration.”
Kevin, who began his career as a singer and musician before going to Cambridge University where he started several different degree course before finally reading history of art and architecture, adds: “It’s interesting that Birmingham’s regeneration has come slightly later compared to other cities in Britain such as Manchester, which had a good 20 years head start.
“Birmingham has been able to learn from some of the mistakes from these other places and concentrated more on the public spaces than other cities.
“It’s a marvellous city and I love it for that. I like the centre so much and particularly the fact that the Town Hall has been beautifully refurbished and that it is becoming an increasingly ‘walkable’ city, by which I mean you can get around it easily.
“I think what’s more interesting is the quieter stuff that’s going on in the Jewellery Quarter and along the canals, with plenty of great restaurants and social spaces, which work really well.”
Kevin retrained as a designer after graduating from university, firstly creating sets for theatres before setting up his own lighting and furniture design business, which he sold in 1999 as his TV career took off, initially appearing in Home Front and Don’t Look Down, then Grand Designs.
