A huge, warehouse-like entertainment complex near Manchester has been named the UK’s worst new building.
The boxy structure, known as Redrock Stockport, was today announced winner of Carbuncle Cup, an annual award recognizing “architectural sins.”
Designed by British architecture firm, BDP, the complex cost a reported £45 million ($58 million). It features a 10-screen cinema, as well as restaurants, bars and a gym.
The judging panel described the building as a “missed opportunity” for Stockport, a town south of Manchester, and a “sad metaphor for our failing high streets.”
Created by the British architecture magazine Building Design, the Carbuncle Cup is billed as a lighthearted counterpart to the annual Stirling Prize, which recognizes Britain’s best new building.
Six structures were shortlisted for this year’s prize, including a red brick house in London which the judges said has “the appearance of a red-faced child who has said something gauche in a room full of grownups,” and a hotel extension in a historic Liverpool neighborhood which they described as “all abrupt right angles and bland horizontality.”
In 2017, the cup went to London mixed-use development Nova Victoria, designed by PLP Architecture. At the time, judge Catherine Croft told the magazine: “It makes me want to cringe physically. It’s a crass assault on all your senses from the moment you leave the Tube station.”
Perhaps the most famous winner is the London skyscraper 20 Fenchurch Street – better known as the “Walkie-Talkie” – which took the title in 2015.
The provocative prize, which aims to stimulate a discussion about the role of architecture, was first awarded in 2006. Its name is taken from a 1984 speech given by Prince Charles at the Royal Institute of British Architects, in which he defined a proposed extension of London’s National Gallery as a “monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much loved and elegant friend.”