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Top ten 'ugliest' buildings in the world unveiled - and many are in our most beautiful cities

By Sarah Gordon Updated: 11:06 EDT, 20 November 2009

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If there was ever any need to prove that even the most beautiful cities have their downside, the latest 'World's Top Ten Ugliest Buildings' list could be it.

Tourist hotspots famed for their architecture such as Prague, Paris, Melbourne and Rio de Janeiro all make it on to the list, compiled by VirtualTourist.com.

The dubious top ten highlights arguable eyesores which include futuristic structures that appear unfinished and even statues of naked babies crawling up television towers.

Weird world: As if Prague's television tower was not ugly enough, it now sports statues of crawling babies on its exterior

Giampiero Ambrosi, general manager of VirtualTourist.com, said: 'Many of these buildings don't have the warmth of an ice cube while others don't even seem completed. Either way, they make for very interesting conversation.'

Top of the list is the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre in Baltimore, USA, where the likes of Katherine Hepburn and George C. Scott trod the boards. As if the building were not unappealing enough it is now derelict, much to the annoyance of locals.

Star turn: Katherine Hepburn may have trodden the boards at the Morris A. Mechanic Theatre in Baltimore but it is still deemed unattractive

In second place, but possibly deserving of the top spot for its bizarre factor, is the Zizkov Television Tower in Prague. The building has been adorned with a number of small, climbing babies by artist David Cerny, which sent it shooting into the list.

Other buildings in the top ten include the new Michael Lee-Chin Crystal at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. It has been likened to the Louvre's glass pyramid and is just as controversial.

Artist's eye: The Georges Pompidou Modern Art Museum looks as if it is still undergoing construction work

It is not only arts buildings that have been named and shamed. The Executive Wing of New Zealand's Parliament Building in Wellington is called 'The Beehive' for its shape. Its unusual and rather unattractive exterior is accentuated by its location next to the beautiful Edwardian Parliament House.

Ugly sister: New Zealand's 'The Beehive' is considered all the more unsightly for its proximity to a beautiful Edwardian building

The Brazilian Petrol (Petrobras) headquarters in Rio de Janeiro looks like it has been made from very dull grey building blocks and is a far from inspiring creation by one of Brazil's wealthy, national companies. 

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But, after seeing Federation Square in Melbourne, tourists may decide dull is better. The mish-mash of strangely-shaped blocks that make up the cafe building are enough without the web of wires which support lights hanging from above.

Uninspiring: Brazil's Petrobras building looks like a giant game of Jenga

Kosovo's National Library, coated by a giant net with a honeycomb pattern, was also noted: it is often assumed that it is still covered in scaffolding but the bizarre design is the final product.

Modern masterpiece? The 'crazy-paving' style of the building is made worse by the web of wires which hang above the square

Share or comment on this article: Top ten ugliest buildings in the world unveiled - and many are in our most beautiful cities

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Top 10 List:

The world's ugliest buildings.

[more Top-10 Lists ]

Here is a list of the top 10 ugliest buildings from around the world, as voted by editors and visitors to the website Virtual Tourist. This list is from 2009, the second time they had compiled this list.

Morris A. Mechanic Theatre, Baltimore, Maryland, Usa

Zizkov Television Tower, Prague, Czech Republic

"The Beehive", Wellington, New Zealand

Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France

Federation Sqaure, Melbourne , Australia

Petrobras Headquarters, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Markel Building, Richmond, Virginia, Usa

Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada

National Library, Pristina, Kosovo

Ryugyong Hotel, Pyongyang, North Korea

• World's Tallest Buildings list
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Matador Original Series

The world's ugliest buildings.

UGLY IS IN. There’s the ugliest dog , the worst pizza , the ugliest river… Finding the worst of something is like winning a popularity contest. It gives you a story to tell, makes people laugh, crowns you undisputed leader in the game of one-up-manship.

Over at Virtual Tourist , they’ve got a list of editors’ and readers’ ugliest buildings for the year 2009 , with the Morris A. Mechanic Theater in Baltimore, the Zizkov TV Building in Prague, and the Parliament Building in Wellington coming in first, second, and third place, respectively.

Flickr Loves Ugly Buildings Too

There are ugly architecture hunters, and they form groups. Flickr has dozens, including this photo pool by indie Brooklyn-based live-on-the-cheap online magazine Brokelyn , plus other groups called bad architecture , ugly architecture , and Eyesore .

But what makes a building ugly? Asymmetry? Buildings that don’t look like our expectations of buildings? Chaos, looking like a spaceship, and not fitting in with local surroundings are criteria that seem to figure strongly.

Memory Burn

Whether you can see the beauty in an off-kilter, unusual, nontraditional architectural style or not is largely based on taste. But it can also prove useful.

During a recent trip to Valparaíso, Chile, I got disoriented on my way to the bus station and stopped someone to ask for directions. He wasn’t from the city, and wasn’t sure where to point me.

“It’s opposite the Congress, I said.” “Oh,” he said, now sure of the direction, because the Chilean National Congress building is a real standout, blending not at all with the pastel-colored houses on the hillside behind it.

Eyesore or landmark, these buildings are nothing if not memorable.

Got a building you love to hate? Tell us about it in the comments.

Community Connection

Eat the ugly with Matador Pulse’s Ugly Fruit Makes European Comeback. There’s also Matador Sports editor Adam Roy’s Chicago for the Architecture Buff (not ugly).

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Federation Square named among world's ugliest buildings on Virtual Tourist website

MELBOURNE'S Federation Square has been named among the 10 ugliest buildings in the world.

Don't miss out on the headlines from News. Followed categories will be added to My News.

Virtual Tourist puts Fed Square fifth on its list of eyesores, alongside a library in Kosovo, a television tower in Prague and New Zealand's 1970s-era parliament building.

Does Fed Square belong on the list of world's ugliest buildings? Tell us below

Editors and members of the popular Virtual Tourist travel network rubbished the $450 million events venue in Melbourne's civic heart, starting with its slogan "Melbourne's Meeting Place".

"We're guessing that this is where city residents meet - to go somewhere else," concluded the judges.

"Frenzied and overly complicated, the chaotic feel of the complex is made worse by a web of unsightly wires from which overhead lights dangle."

Fed Square has been mired in controversy for years, undergoing a redesign before its belated opening in October 2002.

Since then, it has provoked fierce debate among locals and tourists who either love or loathe it.

Its architects Don Bates and Peter Davidson, of Lab Architecture Studios, were out of work for six months after its unveiling as Davidson was besieged with hate mail from angry critics.

However, Fed Square management claims to have attracted a record 8.4 million visitors last year says the venue is among the top two tourist destinations in Victoria, alongside the Queen Victoria Market .

About 55 million people have visited Fed Square since it opened, according to the latest official count.

Virtual Tourist's list, its second annual compendium of ugly structures around the world, was complied by members of the online traveller's network and it editors.

It was released in the US over the weekend.

The ugliest building was the Morris A Mechanic Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland.

New Zealand's 70s-era "beehive" building, a wing of its parliamentary precinct, was ranked number three.

"A slide projector that fell on a wedding cake that fell on a waterwheel is one description of this building known," they write.

Virtual Tourist general manager Giampiero Ambrosi said the structures were awful.

"Many of these buildings don't have the warmth of an ice cube while others dont even seem completed," Giampiero Ambrosi said.

Virtual Tourist's Top 10 Ugliest Buildings in the World

1. Morris A. Mechanic Theater in Baltimore, Maryland

2. Zizkov Television Tower; Prague, Czech Republic

3. ''The Beehive''; Wellington, New Zealand

4. Center Georges Pompidou; Paris, France

5. Federation Square; Melbourne, Australia

6. Petrobras Headquarters; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

7. Markel Building; Richmond, Virginia

8. Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, Royal Ontario Museum; Toronto

9. National Library; Pristina, Kosovo

10. Ryugyong Hotel; Pyongyang, North Korea

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9 of the world's ugliest, most hated buildings

• Some of the ugliest buildings in the world are home to luxury apartments and government facilities.
• From Texas to Thailand, buildings across the world are ridiculed for their function and style.
• North Korea's "Hotel of Doom" has been empty for decades, and is widely recognized as an eyesore.

Thanks partly to its blocky, concrete exterior, people in Massachusetts wanted to demolish Boston's City Hall before its construction was even completed.

Completed in 1968, this building is an example of brutalist architecture — a controversial style known for its bare, blocky shapes and frequent use of exposed concrete.

Over the years, it has also been criticized for being "ugly" and "anti-urban."

"City Hall is so ugly that its insane upside-down wedding-cake columns and windswept plaza distract from the building's true offense," wrote columnist Paul McMorrow in the Boston Globe in 2013 .

"Its great crime isn't being ugly; it's being anti-urban," McMorrow wrote. "... The primary function of cities is clustering people together, but City Hall goes to great lengths to repel them."

In addition, many people in Massachusetts called for the destruction of Boston's City Hall before the structure was even fully built, according to Current Affairs magazine . 

North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel, also dubbed the "Hotel of Doom," has stood empty for over 30 years, sparking criticism about its design and construction.

Once considered "the world's tallest unoccupied building" by Guinness World Records , the Ryugyong Hotel has been nicknamed the "Hotel of Doom," according to the BBC . 

It's also been described as " the worst-designed building in the world " and one of "the world's ugliest hotels " by writers for publications like Esquire and The Telegraph.

When construction began in 1987, the Ryugyong Hotel was designed to become an impressive masterpiece : a building taller than the Eiffel Tower, complete with 3,000 rooms and five revolving restaurants, according to CNN Style. 

Decades later, this hotel has yet to open its doors to guests. 

A Washingtonian critic described Washington, DC's J. Edgar Hoover Building as visually unappealing, "cold," "unwelcoming," and "dystopian."

The construction of the FBI's headquarters — officially known as the J. Edgar Hoover Building — began in the 1960s. It is emblematic of brutalist architecture, which originated in the mid-20th century.

An article from The Washingtonian , a prominent local newspaper in DC, states that the building, which is the home of the FBI, has long been considered the "scorn of Washingtonians." The author later describes the structure as "cold, unwelcoming, [and] almost dystopian."

According to a survey conducted by home improvement company Buildworld , the building is deemed to be the ugliest building in the US.

The FBI website states that the structure heavily "[contrasts] with the traditional marble, granite, or limestone government buildings."

In defense of the building, Deane Madsen, who runs an Instagram account dedicated to appreciating DC's brutalist buildings, stated, "DC isn't just Greek revival monuments or courthouse style buildings. It's not just these sort of white marble edifices."

Many believe that the Verizon Building on Pearl Street contrasts too heavily with its surrounding buildings, disrupting the beauty of New York City's iconic skyline.

Built in 1975, the Verizon Building on Pearl Street has remained the subject of much ridicule. Set behind the historic Brooklyn Bridge and adjacent to some of NYC's most beloved structures, many see the building as an affront to the city's skyline.

Paul Goldberger — a New York Times architecture critic — argued that the building might be the "most disturbing" structure in all of New York City in 1975.

In a TimeOut article that showcased critical tweets aimed at the building, Twitter users referred to the building as "stupid" and claimed that it "ruined" their otherwise beautiful photos of the NYC skyline.

Although criticized by locals for its ugly Brutalist exterior, apartments inside The Balfron Tower sell for close to $1 million.

Similar to the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, The Balfron Tower is an example of Brutalist architecture. Although the structure was built in the 1960s, the residential building has newly-renovated interiors.

Various publications, including MyLondon , refer to the structure as one of "the ugliest buildings in the country." Nevertheless, after renovations , the Guardian reports that apartments in the Balfron Tower are being sold for upwards of £800,000, or $992,744.

In the same MyLondon article, Josh Bolton notes that in 2010 residents were forced to relocate — and eventually kicked out of the building — to allow for refurbishments. The building offers luxury amenities, including a private dining terrace, a yoga room, and a movie theater. 

The Žižkov Television Tower in Prague has been called "the second-ugliest building in the world" and is said to evoke the country's communist past.

A structure builders began constructing in the 1980s , the Žižkov Television Tower in Prague, Czech Republic, has been nicknamed "the second-ugliest building in the world,"  according to CBC Radio.

The building sticks out amongst the rest of Prague's charming architecture and is a divisive reminder of the city's former communist government . 

Over a decade ago, to make the "eyesore" more unique, artist David Černý installed sculptures of giant babies crawling up the side of the tower.

First added to the tower as a temporary exhibit, the "Babies" sculptures were recently reinstalled with more durable construction, according to expats.cz. Although the building itself may inspire mixed feelings, the sculptures of babies are quite beloved . 

In an article for The Washington Post, an architecture critic called the ROM Crystal in Toronto — considered one of the most hated buildings in Canada — "ugly" and "useless."

When it first opened in 2007 , the Royal Ontario Museum's Michael Lee-Chin Crystal did not receive much love for its design comprised of glass, steel, sloped walls, and angle joints. 

"Daniel Libeskind's addition to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto surpasses the ugliness of bland functional buildings by being both ugly and useless," wrote Philip Kennicott, art and architecture critic, in The Washington Post in 2009.

Kennicott also questioned the wisdom of creating a building with slanted walls to display art. 

In the past decade or so, some Torontonians have come to see the building as an essential addition to the city's landscape and a beloved landmark. 

" Architecture needs time to sink in ," said Alexander Josephson, cofounder of architecture and design firm Partisans, in Azure magazine.

San Antonio's Alamodome — a multi-use stadium — has been referred to as "an upside-down armadillo" and is hated by Texans and tourists alike.

The Alamodome — which cost $186 million to construct — opened its doors in 1993.

Despite its hefty price tag, San Antonians aren't impressed with the stadium's aesthetic.

According to the San Antonio Current , "Locals have long referred to the 64,000-seat arena by nicknames including the 'Dead Armadillo' and the 'Doo Doo Dome.'"

In 2018, San Antonio Culture Map reported that Judge Nelson Wolff, who was San Antonio's mayor during the Alamodome's construction, explained that San Antonio residents referred to the stadium as "four telephone poles on an airplane hangar" and "an upside-down armadillo."

Strikingly dissimilar to the medieval architecture that Edinburgh is known for, the Scottish Parliament Building has been named the "world's biggest eyesore" by Buildworld.

In Buildworld's survey of the world's ugliest buildings , the Scottish Parliament Building came out on top. They found that, at the time of their study, 42.07% of tweets that mentioned the building were negative.

According to the Scottish Parliament's archive , the building, which was completed in 2004, is made from a mixture of steel, oak, and granite.

According to Buildword , "The project was unpopular from the start, as a national building designed by a foreign architect that quickly spiraled ten times over budget and way beyond its deadline."

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The Ugliest Buildings in the World?

Travel Blog   •  Eva Holland  •  11.26.08 | 9:37 AM ET

I’m guessing the folks at VirtualTourist.com had a lot of fun putting together this list of the world’s ugliest buildings and monuments . For my part, I enjoyed reading a “Worst of” list for a change, complete with acerbic commentary, instead of the glowing superlatives of the usual “Best of” lists. Here’s their take on New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal: “Those who pass by this iron monstrosity might be tempted to ask about a completion date, but alas, this is the finished product.”

As for the ugliest building I’ve encountered on my travels? The hands-down winner is Dunelm House, the students’ union building at Britain’s Durham University. It’s a prime example of Brutalist architecture , and its ugliness is only emphasized by its location: smack in the middle of an otherwise lovely medieval town.

• Comments (2)

Eva Holland is co-editor of World Hum. She is a former associate editor at Up Here and Up Here Business magazines, and a contributor to Vela . She's based in Canada's Yukon territory.

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2 Comments for The Ugliest Buildings in the World?

TambourineMan 11.26.08 | 3:18 PM ET

It’s not well known, but I nominate the Caltrans building in downtown LA:

http://www.emporis.com/en/il/im/?id=385076

In these parts it’s known as “The Death Star.”

Vera Marie Badertscher 11.27.08 | 12:24 AM ET

I nominate the federal court building in Tucson Arizona.http://www.architectureweek.com/2001/0228/design_1-1.html The author of this article actually likes the disparate collection of objects….judge for yourself.

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10 Russian buildings that are so ugly they'll make you cry

Architecture is one of the pillars of human creativity. However, architects sometimes push the limits of good taste, even creating grotesque and utterly primitive buildings. We chose ten such masterpieces of bad taste built in Russia since 2000. 

1. Grand Furniture Shopping Mall, Moscow

This mall, located in northern Moscow, resembles a gigantic worm crawling through a kind of saccharine, pinkish-red cake. The entrance leads you directly into the mouth of the worm. Yikes!

2. Et Cetera Theater, Moscow

When this theater opened in the center of Moscow in 2005, locals immediately declared it one of most hideous buildings in the capital. Rumor has it that even the architect has since renounced the building’s design.

The theater looks like it was built by several different designers who couldn’t agree on which style to go with and instead decided to decorate it with all sorts of excessive, unnecessary and ludicrous embellishments, including fake columns and arches, a giant puck and Renaissance-style passageways.

3. Nautilus Shopping Mall

Russian blogger Ilya Varlamov once referred to this five-story building in the shape of a colorful iron on Nikolskaya Street as "a spit in the face of all Muscovites." 

The building is asymmetric in every way. Its floors, roof and windows are all designed in different styles, and the decorative elements are all uneven. The main question that comes to mind when looking at this building is “What are you doing it to my eyes and why?”

4. Marriot Hotel, Sochi

The Marriot Hotel was built in the resort town of Krasnaya Polyana before the Sochi 2014 Olympics. At the time, some Russian media outlets noted that even a famous brand couldn’t save the hotel from the building’s architectural flaws. The hotel is constructed in a crazy and eclectic style that includes several pseudo Greek columns on the façade. 

5. Ryumka Business Center, Tver

This huge modern building is actually called the “Tver Business Center,” but locals nicknamed it “Ryumka” (“glass” in English) due to its shape. This bulky and disproportionate construction built on a thin foundation was opened in 2013 on the site of a previously unfinished hotel. Besides offices, there is also an observation deck, which provides the best view of the city—in part because you don’t see the building itself from there.

6. Fura Shopping Mall, Kostroma

Fura (“truck” in English) is the official name of this mall for drivers. It is the only store in the shape of a truck in Russia and, quite possibly, in the world as a whole. Fura opened in 2007 and was immediately decried by local media as tasteless and clumsy. 

7. Koltso Shopping Mall, Kazan

Shopping malls are perhaps the main source of architectural evil today. The Koltso (“ring”) mall in the capital of Tatarstan is not, to put it lightly, very fashion forward. All of it, the huge fake “ring” above the side entrance, the lurid lighting and unpresentable façade just don’t fit in with the rest of the city center.

8. St. Petersburg Plaza Business Center, St. Petersburg

According to some Russian media, this business center, which opened in 2011, is located on the site of what was an ancient cholera cemetery. The building’s form is a subject of extensive criticism as well, with locals calling it “the huge bidet.” 

9. Russian Post Office, Saransk

The Russian blogger and designer Artemy Lebedev was surprised that an official building of the Russian Post Office was built, as he put it, “in the shape of a blue samovar.”  Unfortunately, you can’t make any tea with the building.

10. Clover House Shopping Mall, Vladivostok

This mall opened in 2007 and quickly became popular among residents of Vladivostok. But its popularity hasn’t saved the building from local architectural critics. People consider it one of the ugliest buildings in the city. “With this construction, the developer committed three crimes,” one resident wrote on a forum. “Disfigured the city with a grey barrel, did it in the historical center and made it right on the square.”

If using any of Russia Beyond's content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material.

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These are the top 10 ugliest buildings in America

But they have sparkling personalities?

Our culture of political correctness doesn’t always allow us to call things ugly, but sometimes you’ve just got to call them like you see them. Case in point: Buildworld ’s current ranking of the top 10 eyesore buildings in the U.S. The UK building material supplier conducted a not-so-scientific study of the world’s supposed ugliest buildings, culling Twitter for public opinions about particular designs and analyzing the percentage of negative tweets about each building.

The results of a much longer analytical process, which employed an AI algorithm to review collected tweets, were used to determine the list of the world’s, UK’s and U.S.’s ugliest buildings, with good ol’ America coming out on top with more eyesores than our British counterparts.

Six of the world’s most hideous structures can be found right here at home, including the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C., which also ranks as the ugliest in the country. The Watergate complex (also in D.C.) and Boston City Hall also made the list. Government buildings are indexed higher than commercial structures, pointing to a general distaste for civic architecture (and, perhaps, political affiliations if you consider one of the towers named on this list.)

Here’s the full list of the top 10 ugliest buildings in the U.S. Should you spot these around town or the next time you’re on vacation, you might think twice about snapping a photo for Instagram.

1. J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, D.C. 2. Boston City Hall, Boston 3. Verizon Building, New York 4. Watergate complex, Washington, D.C. 5. The Denver International Airport, Colorado 6. Trump Tower, Las Vegas 7. U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis 8. Thompson Center, Chicago 9. Alamodome, San Antonio 10. Florida State Capitol

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9 of the ugliest, most hated buildings in the world

Lindsay mack,elana klein   .

• Some of the ugliest buildings in the world are home to luxury apartments and government facilities.
• From Texas to Thailand, buildings across the world are ridiculed for their function and style.

Thanks partly to its blocky, concrete exterior, people in Massachusetts wanted to demolish Boston's City Hall before its construction was even completed.

Completed in 1968, this building is an example of brutalist architecture — a controversial style known for its bare, blocky shapes and frequent use of exposed concrete.

Over the years, it has also been criticized for being "ugly" and "anti-urban."

"City Hall is so ugly that its insane upside-down wedding-cake columns and windswept plaza distract from the building's true offense," wrote columnist Paul McMorrow in the Boston Globe in 2013 .

"Its great crime isn't being ugly; it's being anti-urban," McMorrow wrote. "... The primary function of cities is clustering people together, but City Hall goes to great lengths to repel them."

In addition, many people in Massachusetts called for the destruction of Boston's City Hall before the structure was even fully built, according to Current Affairs magazine .

North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel, also dubbed the "Hotel of Doom," has stood empty for over 30 years, sparking criticism about its design and construction.

Once considered "the world's tallest unoccupied building" by Guinness World Records , the Ryugyong Hotel has been nicknamed the "Hotel of Doom," according to the BBC .

It's also been described as " the worst-designed building in the world " and one of "the world's ugliest hotels " by writers for publications like Esquire and The Telegraph.

When construction began in 1987, the Ryugyong Hotel was designed to become an impressive masterpiece : a building taller than the Eiffel Tower, complete with 3,000 rooms and five revolving restaurants, according to CNN Style.

Decades later, this hotel has yet to open its doors to guests.

A Washingtonian critic described Washington, DC's J. Edgar Hoover Building as visually unappealing, "cold," "unwelcoming," and "dystopian."

The construction of the FBI's headquarters — officially known as the J. Edgar Hoover Building — began in the 1960s. It is emblematic of brutalist architecture, which originated in the mid-20th century.

An article from The Washingtonian , a prominent local newspaper in DC, states that the building, which is the home of the FBI, has long been considered the "scorn of Washingtonians." The author later describes the structure as "cold, unwelcoming, [and] almost dystopian."

According to a survey conducted by home improvement company Buildworld , the building is deemed to be the ugliest building in the US.

The FBI website states that the structure heavily "[contrasts] with the traditional marble, granite, or limestone government buildings."

In defense of the building, Deane Madsen, who runs an Instagram account dedicated to appreciating DC's brutalist buildings, stated, "DC isn't just Greek revival monuments or courthouse style buildings. It's not just these sort of white marble edifices."

Many believe that the Verizon Building on Pearl Street contrasts too heavily with its surrounding buildings, disrupting the beauty of New York City's iconic skyline.

Built in 1975, the Verizon Building on Pearl Street has remained the subject of much ridicule. Set behind the historic Brooklyn Bridge and adjacent to some of NYC's most beloved structures, many see the building as an affront to the city's skyline.

Paul Goldberger — a New York Times architecture critic — argued that the building might be the "most disturbing" structure in all of New York City in 1975.

In a TimeOut article that showcased critical tweets aimed at the building, Twitter users referred to the building as "stupid" and claimed that it "ruined" their otherwise beautiful photos of the NYC skyline.

Although criticized by locals for its ugly Brutalist exterior, apartments inside The Balfron Tower sell for close to $1 million.

Similar to the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, The Balfron Tower is an example of Brutalist architecture. Although the structure was built in the 1960s, the residential building has newly-renovated interiors.

Various publications, including MyLondon , refer to the structure as one of "the ugliest buildings in the country." Nevertheless, after renovations , the Guardian reports that apartments in the Balfron Tower are being sold for upwards of £800,000, or $992,744.

In the same MyLondon article, Josh Bolton notes that in 2010 residents were forced to relocate — and eventually kicked out of the building — to allow for refurbishments. The building offers luxury amenities, including a private dining terrace, a yoga room, and a movie theater.

The Žižkov Television Tower in Prague has been called "the second-ugliest building in the world" and is said to evoke the country's communist past.

A structure builders began constructing in the 1980s , the Žižkov Television Tower in Prague, Czech Republic, has been nicknamed "the second-ugliest building in the world," according to CBC Radio.

The building sticks out amongst the rest of Prague's charming architecture and is a divisive reminder of the city's former communist government .

Over a decade ago, to make the "eyesore" more unique, artist David Černý installed sculptures of giant babies crawling up the side of the tower.

First added to the tower as a temporary exhibit, the "Babies" sculptures were recently reinstalled with more durable construction, according to expats.cz. Although the building itself may inspire mixed feelings, the sculptures of babies are quite beloved .

In an article for The Washington Post, an architecture critic called the ROM Crystal in Toronto — considered one of the most hated buildings in Canada — "ugly" and "useless."

When it first opened in 2007 , the Royal Ontario Museum's Michael Lee-Chin Crystal did not receive much love for its design comprised of glass, steel, sloped walls, and angle joints.

"Daniel Libeskind's addition to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto surpasses the ugliness of bland functional buildings by being both ugly and useless," wrote Philip Kennicott, art and architecture critic, in The Washington Post in 2009.

Kennicott also questioned the wisdom of creating a building with slanted walls to display art.

In the past decade or so, some Torontonians have come to see the building as an essential addition to the city's landscape and a beloved landmark.

" Architecture needs time to sink in ," said Alexander Josephson, cofounder of architecture and design firm Partisans, in Azure magazine.

San Antonio's Alamodome — a multi-use stadium — has been referred to as "an upside-down armadillo" and is hated by Texans and tourists alike.

The Alamodome — which cost $186 million to construct — opened its doors in 1993.

Despite its hefty price tag, San Antonians aren't impressed with the stadium's aesthetic.

According to the San Antonio Current , "Locals have long referred to the 64,000-seat arena by nicknames including the 'Dead Armadillo' and the 'Doo Doo Dome.'"

In 2018, San Antonio Culture Map reported that Judge Nelson Wolff, who was San Antonio's mayor during the Alamodome's construction, explained that San Antonio residents referred to the stadium as "four telephone poles on an airplane hangar" and "an upside-down armadillo."

Strikingly dissimilar to the medieval architecture that Edinburgh is known for, the Scottish Parliament Building has been named the "world's biggest eyesore" by Buildworld.

In Buildworld's survey of the world's ugliest buildings , the Scottish Parliament Building came out on top. They found that, at the time of their study, 42.07% of tweets that mentioned the building were negative.

According to the Scottish Parliament's archive , the building, which was completed in 2004, is made from a mixture of steel, oak, and granite.

According to Buildword , "The project was unpopular from the start, as a national building designed by a foreign architect that quickly spiraled ten times over budget and way beyond its deadline."

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Danger! Labour want all our new homes to be ugly

This government is hellbent on building ugly homes, and it’s a scandal, says James Price

Of all the many, many mistakes the new Labour government has already made in office, the one that forced a mirthless laugh turned out not to be a mistake at all. The draft of the new National Policy Planning Framework (the bible for housing nerds across Britain) was published with track changes still present throughout the document. 

What a funny error, we chuckled. But it turns out that these are always published this way to make it easier to respond to. Whilst Sam Dumitriu of Britain Remade has an incredible piece of analysis of what the changes and edits tell us about the minutiae of the policy; I was much more interested in a few small excisions. 

The words ‘beauty’ and ‘beautiful’ had been deleted seven times. One headline used to say ‘Achieving well-designed and beautiful places’ – now those places need not be beautiful. It was a removal that would have been deeply embarrassing if it had accidentally been made known – that it was published with the intention of signalling that beauty is no longer a priority when it comes to building houses is downright barbaric. 

Sure, industry bodies might support this change by arguing that the rules are too vague and that they fail to define beauty. But to dismiss it as an unimportant concept goes against our very nature, and millennia of intellectual endeavour to both understand and appreciate the importance of aesthetics in architecture and beyond.

The housing secretary, Angela Rayner, may have called it ‘ridiculous’ to include the concept, but talk to anyone whose town or city was blighted by disgusting brutalist monstrosities. My home, Gloucester, was utterly scarred by the psychopaths who tore down the old buildings after the war in the name of modernity and pragmatism. And just Google what Euston station used to look like. This is what they have taken from us.

Now, unlike the Prime Minister, my dad wasn’t a toolmaker. But he was a house builder, and he taught me the obvious lesson that people prefer homes that are attractive as well as functional. If you could build something more, rather than less, handsome for the same cost, not only could companies sell them more easily, get planning permission more easily, they would also take more pride in their work, a wonderful end in itself. 

And thanks to pioneering modern methods of construction like AI modelling of developments and prefabricated sections, we can do just that. Thakeham homes, in alliance with Octopus Energy, are doing great work on this space, making homes cheaper to build, and thus allowing more money to be spent on making things beautiful. This in turn has a superb impact on reducing the local opposition to the housing that we so desperately need. 

This brings me to the new towns that the government has committed to building. Labour have talked a big game on fixing the planning system to make it pro-growth, and God knows we need both the places to live, and the growth. But if they jettison the idea of beauty, they will jettison the chance to convert the Nimbys. No one would object to the city of Bath being built near them.

In The Aesthetics of Architecture, philosopher Roger Scruton invoked Immanuel Kant’s inclusion of aesthetics as a key part of the mental faculties, to explain that the division between practical reason and aesthetic understanding is untenable. This is obvious to anyone without an advanced modern degree in design. But without this basic insight, Labour’s new towns will be a blight to both the landscape and the lives of those who will end up living there. 

Scruton himself would have been the perfect person to explain this; he was, after all, a co-author of a report into beauty for the government. His untimely death remains a tragedy, and his treatment by the then-government after being falsely smeared by a journalist from the New Statesman was outrageous. But Scruton understood how people felt. As one ordinary participant to the report’s consultation said: “New places are designed by the wheelie bin operators.”

To right both this wrong, and the wrong the new government are about to make, would itself be a beautiful thing. 

Labour pledges hundreds of new banking hubs in bid to revive ‘ghost town’ high streets