Cutty Sark "Wins" Bad Architecture Award

Dean Nicholas
By Dean Nicholas Last edited 138 months ago
Cutty Sark "Wins" Bad Architecture Award

The newly-restored Cutty Sark, opened by the Queen in April, has won the Carbuncle Cup, the annual award that seeks to highlight the worst new piece of architecture in Britain.

Writing in Building Design, the magazine that organises the award, critic Ellis Woodman calls the remodelled glass canopy upon which the tea clipper rests "spectacularly wrongheaded" and argues that it "tragically [defiles] the very thing it sets out to save". He also likens it to another notorious botched restoration, that of the Spanish woman who ruined (or, one might argue, improved) a prized fresco.

Andrew Gilligan has previously branded the project a "a clucking, Grade A, Bernard Matthews-class turkey", while some conservation groups have argued that hoisting the vessel off the ground has weakened its structural integrity.

Was the restoration a failure, or are the critics wrong on this one? Let us know what you think.

See also:

London's best boats and ships

Last Updated 13 September 2012