Carbuncles and silly names

click photo to enlarge
The right-most of the two new buildings in today's photograph was a 2015 nominee for the Carbuncle Cup,an architectural prize awarded by the UK's "Building Design" magazine to "the ugliest building in the United Kingdom completed in the last 12 months." It didn't win, and wasn't even short-listed, because last year it faced severe competition. The winner was, in my opinion, the ugliest building erected in the UK so far this century, and probably in the past fifty years - Rafael Vinoly's 20 Fenchurch Street, also known as "The Walkie Talkie".

If there was a prize for the silliest name for a building then the angular monstrosity shown in today's post would surely have won. It is a hotel in the Shoreditch/Hoxton area of London, near "silicon roundabout" and is called, M by Montcalm Hotel. Why do I dislike this building? Well, it defaces the area in which it stands by acknowledging nothing around it, not even the banal new block next door, an essay in what looks like 1930s Moderne-cum-very stripped classical, that matches it for height. The hotel's sharp points, sloping windows and decorative cladding all seem designed to grab the eye, provoke reaction, say "look at me", and nothing else. The absence of right angles in the elevations seems to be worn like a badge of pride, a feature designed to make passers-by feel that either they or the building is falling over. It's a cheap trick that lacks reason, one that quickly becomes tiresome and provokes a "so what" response.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: M by Montcalm Hotel, Shoreditch, London
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm - 35mm equiv.) crop
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Cutty Sark and the Carbuncle Cup

click photo to enlarge
Two years ago the Cutty Sark visitor centre opened to the public. It was built following a fire in 2007 that seriously damaged the old sailing ship. The Cutty Sark is one of the best known and loved of Britain's nineteenth century sailing ships. It was built by Scott & Linton on the Clyde in 1869, one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest too. The opening of the Suez Canal and the advent of steam ships meant that the work for which it was built soon ended and the carrying of wool from Australia became her main task.

The new visitor centre tells the story of the venerable vessel and is designed to do it in a way that is more commodious for the paying customers. Before the fire the ship rested in a dry dock. However Grimshaw Architects were tasked with making a centre that included more under-cover areas. The answer they came up with is ingenious but not universally liked. A wrap-around latticework of glass and metal forming a wall, roof and entrance, combined with steel supports that raise the ship off the floor of the dry dock, allow the area beneath the ship to become a large indoor space with exhibitions, offices and a cafe. Lifts and stairs allow access to different levels of the dock and ship. The inside and deck of the ship is open to the public in the same way that it always was.

Clearly there are benefits to the display of the ship by having the new covered space. However, there is one very big disadvantage that critics have seized on and that is that the ship as a whole cannot be seen in one view - the top and bottom can only be viewed separately. This prevents the beautiful, sleek lines of the Cutty Sark from being seen, and it is this, as much as anything else that has provoked an intense dislike of the new facilities. In fact, so widespread is the disapproval of the visitor centre - it has been likened to a bus shelter! - that it was the recipient of the Carbuncle Cup in 2012. This award, made by the magazine, "Building Design", is for the "the ugliest building in the United Kingdom completed in the last 12 months". I think the building has serious drawbacks but I'm not entirely sure it deserved such disapprobation. Why? Well, the space created beneath ship is quite spectacular, and though it doesn't make up for the loss of a complete view of the ship, is enough I think to disqualify the project from consideration for UK architecture's "unaward".

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.4mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/30 sec
ISO:640
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Architectural carbuncles and appealing confusion

click photo to enlarge

Today's Guardian newspaper carries a report about the winner and runners-up of the 2011 Carbuncle Cup. An award conceived by Building Design magazine, the annual announcement of the buildings so honoured is abhorred by most of the architectural profession. Usually, however, the judges choose worthy recipients, buildings that are either blots on the landscape or which take mediocrity to new heights.

This year's recipient of the main award is the BBC's £600 million MediaCity UK - not for the overblown name that has been applied to the banal group of glass and concrete boxes at Salford Quays - but for the sheer dullness of the architecture. Jonathan Glancey perceptively notes that, "From a distance MediaCity UK looks like one of those sprawling, faceless office blocks, shunted alongside bleak city squares, that were common in eastern Europe 50 years ago." That's not a view from which anyone with an interest in architecture is likely to demur. One criticism of the 2011 Carbuncle awards that I would make, however, is that the new Museum of Liverpool (a runner-up) should have claimed the first place. This building, again to quote Glancey, "defaces the city's famous Pier Head and cocks a snook at its magnificent neighbours". I recall seeing, a number of years ago, some of the proposals for the new buildings in this area of the city. I don't remember seeing this wedge-shaped lump - more skate-park obstacle than museum - featured.

The building shown in today's photograph is part of a development (More London) that featured in the 2007 Carbuncle Cup short-list.  There's no doubt that in totality and in certain details More London deserved its place on that list. However, I find that some of the details of the buildings, and a few of the buildings themselves are quite interesting and certainly photographically engaging. Take this one. I've passed it many times, photographed it a few, and this shot shows off what I consider its very appealing confusion to best effect.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.4mm (26mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.1
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO:400
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On