The Public has been hailed as the first major new cultural facility in West Bromwich since Andrew Carnegie gave a grant to the town to build a central library in 1907.
It has also been described, perhaps unkindly, as a giant shed with pink blobs. But then it is a Will Alsop creation.
More to the point, it's still empty, having gone into administration earlier this year. That's after £49m of public and lottery money (or £53m, depending on who you talk to) was poured into it.
You can't fault chief executive Sylvia King for wanting to transform her community arts enterprise into a grand project for the people of the Black Country. You might raise an eyebrow, though, at the decision to commission Stirling Prize winner Will Alsop to design it - but since it's not that long since his fusion of architecture and surrealism was regarded as the best thing since mixing peanut butter and strawberry jam, perhaps we shouldn't be too harsh.
Anyway, The Public is currently about as useful to the people of the midlands as one of Nicolae Ceausescu's medals. So it's fascinating to discover that Sandwell Council is still promoting it on its 'Walk West Bromwich' tour.
Perhaps every council should do something similar: a heritage trail of failed projects, financial disasters or grandiose schemes that never quite got off the ground. You could even combine them into a national tourist trail.
Well, if the Crap Towns guide can be a moneyspinner, why not? We might even end up recouping some of that lottery funding.
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