The hotel's Stalinist architecture means it is regularly hailed as one of the city's ugliest and most hated buildings
One of Coventry’s ugliest buildings is getting a long overdue makeover.
The Britannia Hotel in Fairfax Street in finally getting a lick of cream and white paint to brighten up its dull, grey concrete facade.
The hotel will remain open during the work, which is set to take a week to complete.
The building formed part of the argument Radio 4’s Today programme listeners had in 2001 to nominate the entire city centre as one of their least-loved examples of Britain’s built environment.
The ‘brutalist style’ chain hotel, which stands next to Coventry Cathedral and Pool Meadow bus station, has divided opinion since its construction in 1973.
One blogger, writing on TheViscount, wrote: “The remarkable bulk of the Brutalist Britannia Hotel straddles the road, with all the grace of an obese chip scoffer in stilettos, resting her arse on the (daft mock-Grecian) bus station to the right.”
Former Birmingham Post arts editor Terry Grimley once said: “I would be pleased to take the first sledgehammer to the Stalinist grey hulk of the Britannia Hotel.”
However not everyone hates its dark exterior.
Town planner and urban designer Adrian Jones called it “spectacularly brutalist”.
It'll take more than a coat of paint to disguise that hideous monstrosity.
