The Cardinal Exchange building is, in my view, the ugliest building in the city of Leicester. It was built in the early 1970’s by the then GPO Telephone and used to house one of the national telephone exchanges. It was also the international telephone exchange for Britain so if you called someone in Britain from outside the country this is probably where your call was handled. I have no idea whether this is still the case but the last time I was in the building it was mostly empty with just one floor still being used as a telephone exchange. I suspect that may well now have gone and it earns its keep by all the mobile phone base stations on the roof and so is unlikely to be pulled down anytime soon – which is a real shame because it really really is an ugly building.
These image were captured in the car park of the St George’s retail park and they remind my just a little of some of the images that Joel Meyerowitz made in St Louis all those years ago. The arch at St. Louis is a much more interesting building to put it mildly!
