The One Show presenter Adrian Chiles has always been an enthusiastic supporter of the Baggies, but now he is waxing lyrical about West Bromwich’s most contentious building, The Public.

The £57 million centre, which opened three months ago but is yet to receive a paying customer because its interactive gallery is closed due to technical issues, has won few fans.

But according to Chiles it needs to be given a chance, saying that “there’s no point having a big new arts building anywhere if it doesn’t turn a few heads”.

And the building has certainly turned heads. Described as anything from a Lego box with lights and a shoe box with Mr Blobby windows to the Midlands’ Millennium Dome, the pink and black art gallery has changed the skyline of the town.

Based in one of the Black Country’s most deprived towns, the centre boasts lily pad office space, metal trees and a digital waterfall.

But after it featured on the BBC 1′s The One Show last night, Chiles, West Bromwich’s most vociferous champion has been praising it on his on-line blog.

“Like everyone who knows nothing about something, I will say of architecture that I know nothing about it, but I know what I like. And, at first sight I didn’t much like The Public.

“However, while the idiotic use of upper and lower case in the name will continue to grate on me, I think the building is starting to make more sense,” he writes.

“There is no point having a big new arts building anywhere if it doesn’t turn a few heads.

“And you can’t turn a few heads without dismaying a few of them.

“The more I think about it, ‘blimey, that’s awful’ isn’t a bad starting point in anyone’s relationship with anything. It was certainly what most viewers thought of me when I first started out as a television presenter.”

He goes on to say: “In fact, anything that looks good at first might not stand the test of time.

“An example is the BBC logo (I mean the black and white one we use now). I remember being perplexed when the one we use now replaced the old colour one. Replacing colour with black and white. . . how was this progress? Now, of course, the old one looks laughably archaic.”

Construction of The Public arts centre began in 2003, but was two years overdue and more than £14m over budget by June of this year.

The centre first hit problems in 2005 when the company charged with delivering award-winning architect Will Alsop’s plans went into liquidation. The Public went into receivership in 2006, having gone millions of pounds over budget, with chief executive Sylvia King forced out along with half of her staff.

It finally opened in June, but while technical problems are being ironed out, the gallery on the upper floors has yet to accept paying customers, months after the opening weekend.

Technical issues with the interactive exhibits have been blamed for further delays in opening the gallery section of the building to visitors, while just one business, the Major Keys Recording Studio, has so far taken up the chance of moving into state-of-the-art new offices at the centre.

Costs have continued to rise, and in June, Sandwell Council was forced to fork out another £3 million to cover outstanding building costs on top of almost £15 million it has already handed over to the project.

The One Show presenter Lucy Siegle took its designer Will Alsop, who she dubs a “superstar architect”, around the building in New Street, which she describes as the antidote to the usual bland, “personality free” municipal buildings.

Sat on a pile of colourful cushions in a corner of the gallery Alsop was faced with the list of less than flattering nicknames inspired by its chequered history.

But the response seems only to have made him more pleased. He says: “It is what I always saw it as. This is a box of delights. What is the setting? There is a church, imagine when that was built. A funny shaped thing with a big spire, all pointy at the top. But we don’t see it as being weird because we get used to it.”

He adds: “I’m quite proud of it. If they said nothing at all and ignored it like they do with most buildings, usually pretty bad buildings, then I wouldn’t have done the job.”

Chiles finishes his blog saying “The Public will grow on us. I wouldn’t like to be in charge of planning permission at Sandwell Council though. Imagine the stick they’re going to get when they next reject an application for a loft conversion or some such: ‘you won’t let me put another bedroom in the top of my house, but you allow some clown to put that monstrosity up’.”

Project manager David Clarke today welcomed Mr Chiles’ comments, saying: “We are thrilled that Adrian is warming to The Public.

“Thousands of people have come through our doors since we opened, and many of our visitors have changed their minds about The Public once they have seen what it has to offer.”