The Tricorn

An imaginative portrait of a futuristic concrete experiment of a shopping centre ('the ugliest building in the world' according to Prince Charles), built in the 1960s coastal town of Portsmouth, England. Loved or loathed, it developed a passionate cult following of artists and skateboarders but has now lost the battle for life.
Directed by David Ferrone and Martin Fickling

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Rodney
• Gordon
• the
• tricorn
• portsmouth
• brutalism
• shopping
• centre
• ugly
• building
• Prince
• Charles
• skateboard
• graffiti

[SimonSW19]

I always thought of the tricorn as a massive ugly concrete jungle, but it's not been replaced by anything which is a shame, they shouldn't have knocked it down until there was something to replace it with. It was like the barbican just wasn't looked after.

[Rydo182]

I have the feeling we just knocked down yet another fantastic example of post war architecture because of very selfish and current opinions. Horrible. Long live the memory of this fantastic building.

[Rydo182]

@ryan172100 What happened with that auction any more info. Would have loved that.

[ColonelBuckshot]

Yeah they should have chromed it. Punks, Granny's night club, the Casbah, fantastic.

[ryan172100]

I loved this building. The original "tricorn shopcentre" sign is being auctioned on 7th Dec at Nesbits of Portsmouth.

[1100HondaCB]

Post-war reconstruction. What a joke. Nearly twenty years after WWII, they come up with this. I do like the Tricorn, but if only more thought had gone into it, maybe it would have been a success and thus still remaining.

[mancity1000]

I'm from Manchester but I first visited Portsmouth when I was quite young because my sister lived there and one of my first views heading into the city was of a building which I gasped at, "what the hell is that? Its hideous". And during my numerous visits to Portsmouth over my lifetime I actually grew to quite like the Tricorn. It was an ugly building don't get me wrong, but it had character which the vast majority of other buildings just don't have.

[1100HondaCB]

I agree with CeruleanFilms. In its first year, the concrete didn't look bad at all, but time took its toll.

[CeruleanFilms]

What really killed this sort of concrete architecture in Britain was not the design but the climate. The water damage on this thing was beyond catastrophic - parts of it actually grew stalactites. If this were constructed in a more arid environment it would probably still to this day be a masterpiece.

[nutcase170489]

I remember walking through the Tricorn every Saturday to go to the Charlotte Street market. Such a shame that it's gone...