I'd figured Birmingham:AAH was just going to look at the pretty Victorian redbrick buildings of the city which, while nice and interesting, is all a little bit predictable. Thankfully they're developing a nice line in brutalist history and appreciation with a fascinating post on this building.

The site was cleared almost immediately after the war and was used as a car park for visitors to the Bull Ring coming along New Street. It was a massive site, and a prime plot for development. Times passed slowly still and institutions came and went. The site was the scene of a brutal death when a circus performer, who was displaying an array of animals to a crowd on the site, was mauled to death by a tiger. This was in front of a large crowd and many newspapers of the time described as ‘a sight no one deserves to see, not even the most of wicked’.

That collection of concrete actually has a name - Big Top - and was Birmingham's first shopping centre with construction starting in the mid 1950s. The name comes from the circus that used to be on the site, though how the family of the man mauled by the tiger felt about that is unrecorded.

More here.