WANSTEAD: Controversial architect dies
8:26pm Monday 25th August 2008
A CONTROVERSIAL architect responsible for designing some of the UK's most hated buildings has died at the age of 75.
Wanstead-born Rodney Gordon helped create some of the most controversial 'brutalist' architecture of the 1960s and 1970s, including the Tricorn shopping centre in Portsmouth, and the Trinity Centre carpark in Gateshead - which appeared in cult movie classic Get Carter, starring Michael Caine.
Most of Gordon's work, such as the unloved Derwent Tower, also in Gateshead, have been, or are due to be demolished - but many younger architects have called for his remaining buildings to be protected as key examples of their genre.