Eschewing for one moment the spurious nature of Brexit negotiations, turning their attention briefly towards real matters of concern, the Conservative government this week chose to meddle in the housing market. And gloriously freed from having to keep up the pretence of any sort of plan, when it comes to real estate the Tories did what British governments do best, simply by keeping everyone’s house prices firmly up.
No matter that while real wages have fallen 10.4% since the onset of the financial crisis – a decline matched only by Greece – house price in the UK have continued to rise steadily, to the point where the average home now costs five times the average annual wage (a place in London will cost you nine times your average income). Or that a gross shortage of supply also leads to spiralling rents and a dearth of young buyers, who consider with some incredulity the concept of ever being able to afford their own home. It is after all the old people who vote.
So to steady the ship lest it teeter on the highest of waters, the government took aim at the Carbuncle Cup. Inaugurated in 2006, awarded to ‘the ugliest building in the United Kingdom completed in the last 12 months’, and named after Prince Charles His Royal Highness, who in 1984 described a proposed extension to the National Gallery as a ‘monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend’, last month the online magazine Building Design – the Carbuncle Cup prize givers – endowed Lincoln Plaza with their gift for 2016.
Designed by BUJ Architects for Galliard Homes, Lincoln Plaza is a 31-storey luxury housing development situated in the Docklands area of London, near the major business district of Canary Wharf. Featuring two residential towers plus a hotel, three-bedroom properties remained on sale at the time of the award with a price tag of £795,000.
Condemning the project, Building Design editor Thomas Lane described Lincoln Plaza as ‘the worst building amongst a swathe of mediocrity’ around South Quay, the judging panel adding, ‘There is a pressing need for more homes in London and further afield. Lincoln Plaza is the type of project that gives high-rise housing a bad name, making it more difficult to persuade communities to accept new housing’.
Galliard Homes noted that its scheme had so far sold out to buyers, ascribing the award to differing personal tastes. While early iterations of the Carbuncle Cup went to shopping centres and student housing complexes as far afield as Plymouth and Leicester, and to waterfront hotels and ferry terminals in Jersey and Liverpool, more recently London has become the centre of the magazine’s scathing focus.
In 2010 the Carbuncle Cup went to Strata SE1, nicknamed the ‘Electric Razor’, one of the tallest residential buildings in London offering 408 flats in the vicinity of Southwark. Across 2012, 2013, and 2014 the award was granted respectively to the Cutty Sark renovation, University College London student accommodation, and the mixed-use scheme of Woolwich Central. And last year the ignominious prize ended up with 20 Fenchurch Street, a commercial skyscraper in the very heart of the City of London financial district.
Also up for nomination this year were Saffron Square, a residential development in Croydon portrayed as having a ‘car crash of a facade’, and Swiss Bank UBS’s new headquarters at 5 Broadgate, considered a ‘mute steel fortress’ which ‘gives nothing back to the city’.
The Carbuncle Cup is a sort of sad counterpart to the Stirling Prize, the annual award for excellence organised by the Royal Institute of British Architects. Shining a spotlight on shoddy and complacent British architecture, it served a legitimate if comical purpose, but is now sadly defunct. Keen not to upset big privately owned property developers, or the flood of foreign money which snaps such overpriced monstrosities up, the government has abolished the Carbuncle Cup, returning to its crusade against poorer immigrants after first enjoying a light lunch.
