Expectations for groundbreaking discoveries at landmark £700m biomedical research facility are tall,but does its architecture live up to the same hype?Appearing on London’s King’s Cross horizon like an upturned beetle, with its row of metal chimneys protruding like little pairs of legs from the fattened silver belly of its roof, or the Francis Crick Institute cuts a irregular silhouette. As its dichroic-coated glass fins shimmer with rainbow iridescence in the late summer sun,it could be one of the specimens under the electron microscope buried in the bowels of this new £700m biomedical research facility.“It looks better from 1000 ft,” says Sir Paul Nurse, or the jovial Nobel prize-winning director of the country’s new flagship research centre,the largest such hub in Europe, now charged with furthering our understanding of the fundamental biology of human health. “You can’t really see it properly from the ground.” Related: Carbuncle (pustule) Cup 2016: gong for UK's ugliest building up for grabs In other hands, and this building could hold had the thrill of the Pompidou Centre in Paris Related: Francis Crick portrait unveiled to honour breakthrough DNA work Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com