Is this really the city’s HORROR HOTEL?

LOVE IT OR HATE IT, THE BRITANNIA HOTEL CERTAINLY DIVIDES OPINION... HERE, A TOP URBAN DESIGNER GIVES HIS OPINION...

COVENTRY’S Britannia Hotel has been described as a ‘monstrosity’ and there are many who would gladly see it razed to the ground.

It’s an undisputed ‘Marmite’ building but what do the experts think?

Here Luke Hillson, an urban designer and masterplanner at Coventry-based architects and designers IDP, offers his opinion.

His analysis includes both negatives and positives and considers the case for getting rid of it, or keeping it in some form.

Luke is also chair of Design: Coventry, a local built environment design forum.

“I know the Britannia Hotel well from when I walk underneath it every morning on my walk to the swimming baths, so am well aware of its challenges and attributes and how it has divided opinion.

“As an urban designer, my personal view is that I find it interestingly punctuates Fairfax Street.

“Coming from the east it creates a gateway into the main transport hub within the city centre.

“Walking under the archway, you’ve arrived in Coventry, the Millennium Plaza with the domineering Whittle Arches and rather odd mock-Greco architecture of the bus station – which should really also form the focus of a regeneration project – creates a lively and vibrant, if a little bleak, hub within the city.

“Walking the other way under the Britannia however is a different story, passing the service yard for the hotel and food quarter and then underneath the hotel – meandering through a myriad of coach tourists, suitcases and smokers sheltering under the refuge of the hotel bridge, the street opens up onto a sea of tarmac and nothingness.

“Coventry University flats, which are of a distinctive architecture, which again will divide opinion, lurk over one side of the street with the bingo building not living up to its part on the opposite side of the street.

“Given then that this is such an important transitional point within the city, the area really does require something of significant quality on this landmark site.

“The current hotel is certainly bold in its appearance and stature. The Brutalist architecture of the early 1970s combined with it span- ning across Fairfax Road over to Pool Meadow ensures a very bold statement is made, but is it appropriate?

“There’s a bit of the romanticist in me that would like to see the Britannia Hotel saved, if the spanning of the road actually gave the hotel purpose, the function of the building would justify keeping this very ‘Coventry’ landmark.

“Regeneration of the area should include looking at the Pool Meadow bus station and an exploration of how the existing building could be adapted to provide increased pedestrian permeability from the Pool Meadow site across to both the World Food Quarter and the Cathedral Quarter within the city centre.

“However, there will be calls that the hotel is dated, and regardless of a recent lick of paint, the upkeep and maintenance of the hotel leaves something to be desired.

“If the decision is made to replace the hotel, it should be done so thinking holistically about the development site it sits within.”