The University of Sheffield Arts Tower courtesy of arepeejee. Go to flickr.com/photos/arepeejee to see more fantastic photos.

A blight on the skyline of Sheffield or one of the most elegant examples of a building of its style? Some students, like me, love it but most loath it.

Many students refer to it as the “faulty tower” and one staff member who teaches a class I attended in it goes as far as describing it as “a hideous, useless and appallingly designed monstrosity”.

The building undeniably has some serious faults, notably the almost complete lack of toilets apart from the basement floor, the dangerously narrow central column which leads to severe congestion and the single glazed windows which not only make it one of the country’s most energy inefficient buildings but also lead to a sensation that the entire building is about to collapse when the Sheffield weather turns nasty, something that has been known to happen ocassionally!

However, despite all its obvious faults, I like the building and I’m pleased that the university is going to invest £20 million refurbishing it to 21st century standards.

The arts tower in fact has a lot going for it. English heritage have described it as “one of the finest examples of functionalist architecture in the UK and one of the most elegant university buildings of it’s period”. So there!

Furthermore, the tower brings a small amount of fame to the University of Sheffield, firstly because it is the 41st tallest university building in the world, probably Sheffield’s highest world ranking, second because it is an exact half-size copy of Manhattan’s Seagram building, which is moderately famous making the Sheffield based miniature famous-ish by association and finally because it has probably the world’s largest surviving paternoster lift.

The paternoster is strangely loved by all new students, who regard it as some sort of educational roller-coaster. The excitement rapidly wears off once it becomes apparent that it takes about 10 minutes to travel the 78 metres from ground to 19th floor, but nevertheless it provides ample opportunity for slightly amusing Youtube clips, and if ever there was a better reason to preserve something..?