It’s not long for this world, and that’s a crying shame as far as I’m concerned, as it was always the first thing I saw from the ring road that meant I knew we were close to arriving in the city centre. Forget the cathedral, forget Whitefriars, it was this!
It was built in 1976, designed by Coventry City Council and took its influence from the city’s coat of arms, and juts onto the swimming pool (which *is* listed, a decision I find surprising in my own personal view, as the elephant is far more distinctive). My Dad, incidentally, never tires of saying how he helped build the swimming pool. I suspect this meant standing on some scaffolding a long way from the ground…
The elephant and Coventry
The city council’s website gives the coat of arms’ history. Mary Dormer Harris had some ideas, and it appears the elephant was able to not only carry Coventry’s castle, but was the enemy of the dragon. Coventry is, of course, the birthplace of St George according to certain myths.
So an elephant building, right in the centre, guarding the entrance to the cathedral seems wholly appropriate to me. It’s also a distinctively Coventry building. Others, however, disagree.
What’s your view? Should it stay, or should it go?
Comments
I’m not a big fan of the Elephant building. I don’t think that it has the architectural merit of its slightly older neighbour, the swimming baths. This is not just because of my personal involvement. In fact it was quite a family affair as both my sister and father worked in the Coventry City Architects department at the time and had input to the baths.
I worked as a labourer during the summer holidays before I went to university and did indeed intrepidly climb scaffolding above the diving pit. I think that the Elephant is too large and stark and overpowers the surrounding buildings including the baths. The baths building is contrastingly elegant with its splendid W-shaped roof design. It deserves space.
A really unusual building. There are certainly pros and cons to this building. Architecturally it really is a statement but the link between the old swimming baths building and the elephant doesn’t look great, an after thought. Also the facilities inside look a little tired.
It’d be a big hole in the city’s skyline.
I like it, it’s very distinctive. It would be a shame to knock it down, when an interior refurb would bring it up to modern standards and preserve the facilities. I do agree with John about the link to the swimming baths, it is a little jarring.
It’s what they call a “No-Brainer”. Keep it. It is the most overlooked modernist building in Britain, probably because it was designed by humble council architects. In the future, no one will understand why this building was lost. If it was in London or Berlin it would be celebrated.
Add a comment about this page