NW contenders in running for ugliest building in Britain
Two of six contenders for this year’s Carbuncle Cup are from the North West.
The ‘prize’ is awarded each year by magazine Building Design and is the accolade architects least want to win.
It focuses on grotesque and unloved designs and, although it is meant in a light-hearted way, it aims to stimulate debate and highlight examples of bad architecture blighting the UK’s towns and cities, said magazine editor Thomas Lane.
The two North West buildings feted for inclusion in this year’s short list are the Shankly Hotel in Liverpool, and Redrock Stockport, a £4m leisure centre.
A rooftop extension on the Shankly Hotel is described as “grotesque” and has attracted fulsome disdain from many in the city.
The extension was approved by the city’s planning committee, but after the architect was sidelined the developers put forward a new submission which the the magazine says is a “blight on the Liverpool skyline”.
Redrock Stockport includes a 10-screen cinema and, the magazine claims, is a throwback to “the ugly, garish out-of-town container sheds that once encircled British towns and cities”.
The other contenders are Lewisham Gateway, a £375m urban regeneration scheme in south-east London. “It seems to me that … they haven’t really regenerated anything at all,” Thomas Lane said.
Beckley Point, in Plymouth, is a 23-storey student housing block which the magazine describes as “Vegas heads to Plymouth by way of New York”, in that it is “disturbingly similar” to the Las Vegas hotel New York New York, a fun-size caricature of New York skyscrapers stacked side by side.
“The difference is Beckley Point is no joke,” said Mr Lane.
A small house in Streatham has been singled out for special mention.
Although passing strict standards for low-energy designs it has been likened to an electricity substation.
Building materials, including red stock brick with matching pointing, orange guttering, tiles, shutters and gates, give the house “the appearance of a red-faced child who has said something gauche in a room full of grownups”, said the magazine.
The final scheme is Haydn Tower, in Vauxhall, south London, a 13-acre residential development built around a giant Sainsbury’s superstore.
The Carbuncle Cup, inspired by Prince Charles’s remarks about a proposed National Galley extension, was launched in 2006.
Readers suggest their candidates for the past 12 months.
Previous winners include Liverpool Ferry terminal, and MediaCity in Salford.
This year’s winner will be announced on September 5.
Redrock Stockport
More articles in
Sectors
