I like the cut of Peter Franklin‘s jib:
Centre Georges-Pompidou (no, this isn’t an under construction image … it’s from 2017)
Gerd Eichmann photo via Wikimedia Commons.
The Nobels, the Oscars, Pipe Smoker of the Year: glittering prizes all, but I prefer the Carbuncle Cup, which is awarded annually to the “the ugliest building in the United Kingdom completed in the last 12 months”.
Organised by the magazine Building Design, it has (in my aesthetic judgement) produced a worthy shortlist and a worthy winner every year since its inception in 2006.
But there’s a big problem with the prize — not its subjectivity, but the fact that the winning buildings still exist. Indeed, buildings like them are still being built. Name-and-shame is not working.
There’s an argument to be made that things are getting worse. We’ve swapped the horrendous, but interesting, brutalism of the post-war period for the offensively bland spreadsheet architecture of the 21st century. In an age in which Jane Jacobs has won the intellectual battle against Robert Moses, we really ought to know better. Yet we continue to fill up our towns and cities with inhumane, alienating architecture.
Philharmonie at the Parc de la Villette, Paris.
Photo by Zairon via Wikimedia Commons.
It might seem paradoxical, but to end the cycle of destruction, we need to accelerate it. Every year, there should be a public vote to choose the worst new building in the land. The winner wouldn’t get a cup, but a wrecking ball. Yes, that’s right, it would be physically demolished — immediately and without compensation. Indeed, the owner would be required to foot the bill for the building’s de-construction (though they would have the option of suing the architect and the planning authority).
This would concentrate minds wonderfully. Instead of competing among themselves to épater les bourgeois, starchitects would need to design with due regard to the common good. Meanwhile, developers whose sole objective is to squeeze as much profitable square footage into any site they can get their hands on, would have to contend with the possibility of financial (as well as literal) ruin. The planners would come under immense pressure to do a better job too. At the cost of sacrificing one new building, development across the land would be greatly improved.
Cumbernauld Shopping Centre, voted as Britain’s most hated building.
Photo by Ed Webster via Wikimedia Commons.
H/T to Colby Cosh for the link.
