fbtrack

Supermarket is voted Britain's ugliest new building

Britain’s ugliest new building is a Tesco supermarket wrapped in stripped metal cladding with hundreds of flats built on top.

Judges of The Carbuncle Cup branded the building “oppressive, defensive, arrogant and inept”.

Online architecture web magazine Building Design runs the annual competition which targets buildings that are “unforgivably bad and deserve to be named and shamed”.

The Tesco Extra supermarket was selected from a shortlist of six buildings put forward by readers.

Other nominees include the 50-storey Vauxhall Tower, London, a student housing block close to Olympic Park, Stratford, East London, and an apartment block near Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, North London.

Last year, London also took the title with student housing in Caledonian Road, Islington.

The block retained a red brick warehouse frontage bolted to the front of the building. The rest of the warehouse was demolished to make way for the new housing.

“The original frontage has been retained in a cynical gesture towards preservation. But its failings go deeper,” said the judges. “This is a building that the jury struggled to see as remotely fit for human occupation.”

The judges pointed out that most of bedrooms in the block lacked adequate daylight, had little privacy for residents and rooms facing the retained facade had no outside views.

“The inmates living behind the massive masonry ruin will acutely feel the heritage of the retained wall, but it is not clear they will be able to see out. Perhaps the architects were influenced by the historic Pentonville Prison down the road,” said one of the nominees on the web site.

The Carbuncle Cup derives its name from an extension to the National Gallery on the north bank of the River Thames. The wing houses a collection of paintings by artist John Constable.

Prince Charles summed the building up as a ‘a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much loved and elegant friend” in a critique of modern architecture more than 20 years ago.

The article Supermarket is voted Britain’s ugliest new building appeared first on LandlordZONE.

Article courtesy of LandlordZONE