UK Carbuncle Awards

Call attention to the worst of the previous year's architecture, and are "awarded" by a leading architecture publication, Building Design.  This year's "short-list" included an addition to Preston Railway Station by AHR architects that replaced a similar addition that had been done in an appropriate period style decades before.

Preston is notable also for a massive brutalist style bus station that they've had a hard time repurposing ("Love, hate and concrete: The battle for Preston Bus Station," Independent).



I guess the Preston bus terminal demonstrates that buildings of all types can grow on you. I wonder how many past Carbuncle nominees are now looked upon more fondly?





Shockingly, that addition wasn't the winner, which was the Nova Victoria, London, by PLP Architecture.

Although I'd say that if the Nova Victoria is Britain's worst new building, then the US has many more that are worse, or at least, very dull.

Then again, it is particularly context-insensitive. The red color was used to reference the red in the Roundel logo of the London Underground, and the proximity of Victoria Station.