Last weekend I took a relaxed trip up to London to go to an art-house movie at a cinema in one of my favourite pieces of brutalist architecture. the Brunswick centre (as I talked about in “see the beauty of all before you” at the beginning of 2022.
As I walked back to St Pancras railway station for the train home, I looked up and, as if for the first time, I gazed upon the architectural wonder of the Francis Crick institute. Sitting as it does behind both the British Library and St Pancras hotel and station (all of which are architecturally magnificent), it is, however unbelievably, easy to overlook this building.
On this occasion though, I stopped for a moment of awe, to take it in fully, and to take these two photos.
To give some idea of the scale, some data from their web site:
My friend Chip Conley (our podcast here) believes that “Awe is the beginning of wisdom“.
I sense there is something in that, and certainly, I love to take time to be awestruck by beauty, something we can often find simply by walking and looking around us.