England Guide
The West Midlands and the Peak District
The Bull Ring
A few steps from New Street Station, Rotunda Square marks the intersection of New and High streets, taking its name from the soaring Rotunda, a handsome and distinctive cylindrical tower that is the sole survivor of the notorious Bull Ring shopping centre, which fulfilled every miserable cliché of 1960s town planning until its demolition in 2001. The new Bull Ring shopping centre that has sprung up in its place would be a textbook example of safe yet uninspired contemporary planning were it not for two strokes of real invention. In the redevelopment, the architects split the Bull Ring shops into two separate sections and in the gap there is now an uninterrupted view of the medieval spire of St Martin's – an obvious contrast between the old and the new perhaps, but still extraordinarily effective. The second coup was the design of Selfridges' new store, a billowing organic swell protruding from the Bull Ring's east side, and seen to good advantage from the wide stone stairway that descends from Rotunda Square to St Martin's. Reminiscent of an inside-out octopus, Selfridges shimmers with an architectural chain mail of thousands of silver discs, altogether a bold and hugely successful attempt to create a popular city landmark.