Tricorn

This book contains a history of the (in)famous Tricorn building, late of Portsmouth, built in a flurry of sixties modernist vision and demolished after massive public debate in 2004. Tricorn was designed by Owen Luder and/or Rodney Gordon in 1966 as a Brutalist concept to comprise a multi-storey car park with extras: flats, shops, entertainment facilities etc. on derelict land. This detailed book explains the roots and origins of Tricorn, built on a Blitzed slum area and old market, and the evolution of the design from a wholesale vegetable market with a car park to concrete mega structure, major shop centre, haven for artists, home for small traders, housing location, nurses' home, nightclub, entertainment centre and warehouse, before its terminal decline. Illustrated with over 200 photographs and peppered with interviews with the designers themselves as well as locals and bystanders, this is an important record of one of the most controversial buildings of the twentieth century.