Two buildings define the new Birmingham. Like Scylla and Charybdis, they command the straits through which your Virgin train must travel before it burrows underground at New Street station. On one side, you see a crisply-detailed long box, all glass and steel and terracotta louvres. That’s the Lottery-funded science centre, known as Millennium Point. On the other side, you see a growth of space fungus, a silver and blue windowless blob, glittering against the sky. That, astonishingly, is a department store: the new Selfridges, opening in September.