ABSTRACT
During the analysis of our field material one of the authors (Miller) noted that as someone who grew up with Brent Cross, who remembers its original opening and for whom it has always been a major shopping location, the recent changes to that centre have come as something of a shock. Of the many people whose comments he could recall from casual encounters over the years, no one ever had a good word to say about the aesthetics of the Brent Cross exterior, the way it presents itself to the outside world, in particular, the traffic on the North Circular. On the other hand it was rare that a bad word was said about the Brent Cross interior, and the high central dome had become an especially favoured and familiar site to regular shoppers. The fountain below and the mock stained glass above had been readily assimilated and seemed to work extremely well as the key point of identification that made Brent Cross special. If the site had not had such a sensitivity to commercial immediacy he would have predicted that this would have remained an ever more familiar and in a sense friendly part of urban popular architecture, destined to be recognised and protected by some national heritage committee as a key memorial of the 1970s. Indeed on some late afternoons, as the light gradually faded and the colours of the mock stained glass in the dome themselves started to homogenise to a universal dullness one could easily evoke similar experiences in the great religious monuments visited as a tourist and perhaps the same slight twinge of spirituality might have been evoked.
