As part of our long-term plan to rediscover and reinvent the original spirit of Centre Point, we’re proud to announce a creative collaboration with leading print designers, Eley Kishimoto. The world-renowned fashion and design company has graced catwalks with the likes of Louis Vitton and Alexander McQueen, but now they are putting their creative flair towards capturing the spirit of Centre Point and bringing it to life in new ways.
Concrete has a history extending back at least 2,000 years. Rome has been called the Eternal City, but it wouldn’t have lasted long without concrete. It’s the reason why the Coliseum and the Pantheon are still largely intact, not to mention thousands of miles of Roman roads.
When Centre Point was Grade II listed in 1995, it joined a family of remarkable buildings and structures – from telephone boxes to tube stations – that tell the story of how central London has developed. Here is a quick guided tour.
Centre Point is the product of a fascinating period in British architecture: a time of confident experimentation and optimism about the future. It has been cited as part of the Brutalist movement, but the story is more complex than that.
In late 2011, I went to interview Dr Wilem Frischmann, the engineer who built Centre Point. This is the third and final part of our conversation – see earlier posts for part one and part two.
In late 2011, I interviewed Dr Wilem Frischmann, the engineer responsible for making Centre Point a reality. The story behind the building’s construction is remarkable in many ways, not least when it came to laying the foundations – a process in which Dr Frischmann took a close personal interest, which almost proved his downfall.
This is the second part of our conversation – you can read the first part here.
The three-metre neon letters at the top of Centre Point must constitute one of the most frequently read pieces of text in London, visible day and night for miles around.
We asked typographer Bruno Maag of Dalton Maag to examine the lettering from a professional point of view. Here, he gives us his thinking on the choice of type and what it adds to the building.
In late 2011, I interviewed Dr Wilem Frischmann, the engineer behind the construction of Centre Point. (For fans of Britpop trivia, he is also the father of Justine Frischmann, former lead singer in Elastica.)
In the summer of 2010, photographer Jeffrey Martin spent three days at the top of Centre Point, capturing what was then the highest-resolution panoramic view of any city ever taken.
This blog is full of words about Centre Point. But, just this once, we’ll let the numbers do the talking.
