And the "winner" is...
September 8, 2017 6:31 AM Subscribe
Nova Victoria, a mixed use scheme in London has won the 2017 Carbuncle Cup.
The Carbuncle Cup is an "award" given by architecture magazine Building Design to the the ugliest building in the United Kingdom completed in the previous year. Like every year, it features buildings with very questionable design choices, devoid of integration with their surroundings and bad extensions or modernizations to existing buildings, but the winner was the whole-block redevelopment in the Victoria district in London that manages to be both an eyesore, but also detached from its neighbouring buildings.
The Carbuncle Cup is an "award" given by architecture magazine Building Design to the the ugliest building in the United Kingdom completed in the previous year. Like every year, it features buildings with very questionable design choices, devoid of integration with their surroundings and bad extensions or modernizations to existing buildings, but the winner was the whole-block redevelopment in the Victoria district in London that manages to be both an eyesore, but also detached from its neighbouring buildings.
I kind of like it. Probably could do without the red.
posted by Artw at 6:39 AM on September 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by Artw at 6:39 AM on September 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
The train station looks like debarkation point for Toontown.
posted by SPrintF at 6:42 AM on September 8, 2017 [10 favorites]
posted by SPrintF at 6:42 AM on September 8, 2017 [10 favorites]
The problem with so many Frank Gehry imitators is that the end product always seems like it has been through a natural disaster of some sort.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:44 AM on September 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:44 AM on September 8, 2017 [5 favorites]
the fucking battersea power station. it was so majestic, and now someone's just vomited a generic borg cube next to it. actually, scratch that. the Borg cubes were at least cubes. this is just some rectilinear turd. YOU SHALL BE ASSIMILATED.
posted by lalochezia at 6:46 AM on September 8, 2017 [19 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 6:46 AM on September 8, 2017 [19 favorites]
I work near this building. There are worse ones around, but it is definitely a bit of a carbuncle.
posted by knapah at 6:47 AM on September 8, 2017
posted by knapah at 6:47 AM on September 8, 2017
the fucking battersea power station. it was so majestic, and now someone's just vomited a generic borg cube next to it.
No kidding. I can't believe what they did there. It's a horror.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:57 AM on September 8, 2017
No kidding. I can't believe what they did there. It's a horror.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:57 AM on September 8, 2017
The problem with so many Frank Gehry projects is that the end product always seems like it has been through a natural disaster of some sort.
FIFY. The problem stems from Gehry, not his imitators.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 7:03 AM on September 8, 2017
FIFY. The problem stems from Gehry, not his imitators.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 7:03 AM on September 8, 2017
UK planning mystifies me. A property owner can be ordered to use only permitted paint colors, or certain decorative materials. Sameness is relentlessly forced on people who want to build anything in a protected area or near listed buildings (e.g., everywhere). But at the same time, hideous monstrosities are being thrown up all over London that look as though no one at all reviewed the designs, which as far as I can tell were generated procedurally from alpha versions of No Man's Sky.
posted by 1adam12 at 7:26 AM on September 8, 2017 [9 favorites]
posted by 1adam12 at 7:26 AM on September 8, 2017 [9 favorites]
The Greetham Street Student Halls building would look perfectly of a piece with the CBD in Melbourne. It just chose the wrong city, is all.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:34 AM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Navelgazer at 7:34 AM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
I like the Nova building and the student hall. I may not be the target demo for this particular vein of grumping; some of those are pretty bleh and the Battersea situation is ridiculous, but it feels like there's a certain amount of "variety in color and style? NO!" underlying a lot of this which feels incredibly dull and conservative. The tone of the Nova criticism from the article seems to sum up to Why Couldn't They Build A Boring Office Building. World's got a million of those already.
posted by cortex at 7:41 AM on September 8, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by cortex at 7:41 AM on September 8, 2017 [6 favorites]
Oh look, apparently Preston bus station wasn't monstrosity enough, who knew?
posted by aihal at 7:45 AM on September 8, 2017
posted by aihal at 7:45 AM on September 8, 2017
I like this snarky take on it from The Guardian, which describes what happens when bold architectural vision meets the cold hard reality of the planning committee: "The ambition was cut down (...) and the facets, tilts and inclined planes appeared, in the go-to architectural shorthand for paying lip service to protected views."
posted by Eleven at 7:50 AM on September 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Eleven at 7:50 AM on September 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
Why does it feel like London seems to have more than its fair share of highly-questionable modern architecture?
posted by Thorzdad at 9:02 AM on September 8, 2017
posted by Thorzdad at 9:02 AM on September 8, 2017
You know why they don't have this in America? Because it would just be a single trophy that said 'America'.
posted by lumpenprole at 9:16 AM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by lumpenprole at 9:16 AM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
the fucking battersea power station. it was so majestic, and now someone's just vomited a generic borg cube next to it. actually, scratch that. the Borg cubes were at least cubes. this is just some rectilinear turd. YOU SHALL BE ASSIMILATED.
I have a 4 colour art print of the battersea on the wall right across from where I am sitting right now. When I got to it at the bottom of the linked article I just looked at it and sighed.
When you have a building cool enough to be on an album cover and then you bury it... I almost wonder if it is part of a ploy to discredit the modern world.
posted by srboisvert at 9:23 AM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
I have a 4 colour art print of the battersea on the wall right across from where I am sitting right now. When I got to it at the bottom of the linked article I just looked at it and sighed.
When you have a building cool enough to be on an album cover and then you bury it... I almost wonder if it is part of a ploy to discredit the modern world.
posted by srboisvert at 9:23 AM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
Look under the bridge in front of the power station, My first thought was "Clown Hole". What is that?
posted by boilermonster at 9:26 AM on September 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by boilermonster at 9:26 AM on September 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
My reaction to picture 1 of the slideshow: "Well that's not so bad, if that's the worse they've got then London is in pretty good shape."
My reaction to picture 2 of the slideshow: "Oh no, no no no no..."
posted by muddgirl at 10:16 AM on September 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
My reaction to picture 2 of the slideshow: "Oh no, no no no no..."
posted by muddgirl at 10:16 AM on September 8, 2017 [1 favorite]
That akimbo, haphazard, shack in front of the elegant turn of the century train station. Sue them.
posted by Oyéah at 10:18 AM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 10:18 AM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
That akimbo, haphazard, shack in front of the elegant turn of the century train station.
The winner is merely a jumbled eyesore and insult to aesthetics. But the train station entrance at once looks so shoddy, so cheap, so hideously low-effort (right down to the font), so utterly incompetent, that it looks like a drunken hillbilly haphazardly threw up an outhouse or live bait shack in front of the station and only by bribing the local constabulary with the contents of the moonshine still that's assuredly operating in the back has it been able to remain in place.
posted by Palindromedary at 11:24 AM on September 8, 2017 [6 favorites]
The winner is merely a jumbled eyesore and insult to aesthetics. But the train station entrance at once looks so shoddy, so cheap, so hideously low-effort (right down to the font), so utterly incompetent, that it looks like a drunken hillbilly haphazardly threw up an outhouse or live bait shack in front of the station and only by bribing the local constabulary with the contents of the moonshine still that's assuredly operating in the back has it been able to remain in place.
posted by Palindromedary at 11:24 AM on September 8, 2017 [6 favorites]
I'm on the 'yeah I quite like that' side... there's been far far worse buildings shoved up in London in recent years.
The station is awful, but the one before it - the grey brick slapped down next to the red brick Victorian house - is almost hilariously bad.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:52 AM on September 8, 2017
The station is awful, but the one before it - the grey brick slapped down next to the red brick Victorian house - is almost hilariously bad.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:52 AM on September 8, 2017
Most of these are fine.
I mainly like buildings. They're not all perfect, but they aren't going to last forever, and people get to live and work in them and stuff in the meantime.
posted by howfar at 12:02 PM on September 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
I mainly like buildings. They're not all perfect, but they aren't going to last forever, and people get to live and work in them and stuff in the meantime.
posted by howfar at 12:02 PM on September 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
After following some of the other links, I have to ask why modern university architecture, and especially modern student dorms, are so universally carbuncular? My alma mater's newest student dorm is pretty stupefying. Is it because there are only a few ways to make an efficient design look distinct? A reaction to brutalism?
posted by muddgirl at 12:04 PM on September 8, 2017
posted by muddgirl at 12:04 PM on September 8, 2017
so going purely on what I know of as "carbuncle", I thought this would be a positive award.
Also, DO NOT IMAGE SEARCH "carbuncle" with no other qualifiers.
posted by numaner at 12:35 PM on September 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
Also, DO NOT IMAGE SEARCH "carbuncle" with no other qualifiers.
posted by numaner at 12:35 PM on September 8, 2017 [3 favorites]
Apparently the use of "carbuncle" to describe architecture was popularised by none other than HRH Prince Charles, Duke of Cornwall and Prince of Wales.
The first principle of discourse about architecture is that HRH Prince Charles, Duke of Cornwall and Prince of Wales can fuck right off.
posted by howfar at 12:51 PM on September 8, 2017
The first principle of discourse about architecture is that HRH Prince Charles, Duke of Cornwall and Prince of Wales can fuck right off.
posted by howfar at 12:51 PM on September 8, 2017
Battersea and the train station entrance are legit terrible. The addition to the house just makes me think those people have more money than sense. Everything else seems mostly okay? Is the student hall in this just because the local people are freaked out by seeing something yellow in the sky?
posted by oneirodynia at 3:10 PM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by oneirodynia at 3:10 PM on September 8, 2017 [2 favorites]
I wonder if some people here aren't noticing that the top image for each article is a slideshow? Like the student dorm looks OK in the first picture I guess, but it also has like a grain silo on the back? And a single curved entrance for some reason? And 6 different patterns of cladding?
posted by muddgirl at 4:54 PM on September 8, 2017
posted by muddgirl at 4:54 PM on September 8, 2017
My reaction to picture 2 of the slideshow: "Oh no, no no no no..."
When I scrolled down to that I just froze and said the exact same thing. My God.
posted by kalimac at 5:48 PM on September 8, 2017
When I scrolled down to that I just froze and said the exact same thing. My God.
posted by kalimac at 5:48 PM on September 8, 2017
This is overall the least carbuncular CC shortlist I've seen, although the house extension, Preston Station and Battersea are literally carbuncles in the architectural sense. Parts of the winner are actually good, and who knows what sort of value engineering or compromise led it to its final state. I hate when critics slander some architect as merely 'copying the starchitects' when so much of the industry is copying pretty much everything.
I agree that Battersea should have won, if not for the actual execution of the glass cube but for what it represents.
posted by Flashman at 5:43 AM on September 9, 2017
I agree that Battersea should have won, if not for the actual execution of the glass cube but for what it represents.
posted by Flashman at 5:43 AM on September 9, 2017
Why do I get the feeling that these award-givers are the same people who insist that everyone must have white Christmas lights and only white Christmas lights?
posted by clawsoon at 5:53 AM on September 9, 2017
posted by clawsoon at 5:53 AM on September 9, 2017
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posted by lmfsilva at 6:35 AM on September 8, 2017 [1 favorite]