Nova Victoria wins Carbuncle Cup 2017 for Britain's ugliest building of the year

Poor Nova Victoria. As one of six finalists, the overwhelming mixed-use building in London's Victoria district was deemed the winner of BD Magazine's 2017 Carbuncle Cup for Britain's ugliest building of the year. In 2016, London's Lincoln Plaza won the debatable prize.

Occupying an entire block, the 897,000 sq.ft. Nova Victoria comprises two office buildings designed by PLP Architecture and a residential building by Benson & Forsyth. The project was supposed to be a daring gamechanger, with its statement-red “prows” that slice up the monolithic nature of the structure. Evidently, the judging panel bluntly disagreed.

Judge Catherine Croft, the director of Twentieth Century Society, described it as “a crass assault on all your senses”. BD Editor Thomas Lane said that “[t]he architect appears to have been inspired by the fractured, angular shapes beloved of stararchitects like Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind and applied these to a run-of-the-mill spec office development.” As a result, the building looks like “angular volumes drunkenly leaning on each other,” Lane writes.

Read more about the project on BD, or have another look at the six Carbuncle Cup finalists.