I love your first two pics ! That kind of street, on a wet day, reminds me of a village in Cornwall I used to visit, but of course there are scenes like that all over Europe: old buildings on a crooked street are so attractive.
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But if you're commisioned to build a modern university building, what can you do? This is the busy, brick-clad Queens Building for De Montfort University in Leicester. It seems to look like a different building from each elevation, which makes it unusual. Also striking are the ventilation towers:-