There were five more contenders for the title of the worst building of the year according to the authoritative edition of Building Design:
sculpture / observation tower Orbit by engineer Cecil Belmond and sculptor Anish Kapoor for the Olympic Park in London;
Titanic Museum Belfast Civic Arts and Todd Architects
Shard End Library in Birmingham Bureau Idp Partnership
Firepool Lock residential complex in Touton by Andrew Smith Architects
multifunctional complex Mann Island in Liverpool by Broadway Malyan.
The objects for the award are nominated by the readers of the magazine, then they are published in this capacity on the website of the publication. Those who received the largest number of comments are included in the short-list, and the "favorites" of the jury members are added to them. The jury will choose the worst structure of the finalists.
Orbit - an ugly and functionally unsubstantiated structure - was considered the main "favorite" of the anti-premium, but lost to the seemingly quite professional and even pretty
the 19th century ship museumification project. Many observers were very disappointed with this choice of the jury.
Moreover, the decision sparked a heated discussion about the feasibility of such a prize in principle. Some readers of the magazine actively oppose in their comments, call the award “a shame of architecture”, say that it causes “irreparable damage to the entire industry” and accuse BD magazine of “yellowness”. Others, on the contrary, call for expanding the list of nominations and awarding the prize not only to architects, but also to developers and contractors.
In fact, the reasons for this decision of the organizers are quite obvious. They do not want to point fingers at ill-fated projects and expose vices, but urge to learn from the failures. They are being judged not for appearance, but for inefficiency, loss of connection with reality, complete inadequacy of the result to the tasks set, for the missed opportunity to implement a high-quality project that improves the "built environment" and people's lives.
The main claims to the project are not even related to the architectural solution, but to the huge amounts spent and the economic unreasonableness of the project, the actual destruction of the pride of the British Navy in the process of restoration (in May 2007, a fire caused by the negligence of the workers destroyed all the wooden parts of the perfectly preserved ship) for its further preservation by the decision to "hang" the ship above the ground, etc. In this sense, it is significant that in his article the authoritative critic Ellis Woodman calls for talking about "tragedy, not crime." What a pity that we do not have our own - indicative, thought-provoking - anti-awards …
L. M.
