Ugly old Beehive

New Zealand's Parliament Building has been named the third ugliest building in the world by tourism website VirtualTourist.com, which describes the Beehive as a "a slide projector that fell on a wedding cake that fell on a waterwheel" – a process, to be honest, that would probably provide a more attractive outcome.

 Says the Herald, where you can vote (or at least comment) on its ugliness:

    “The Morris A. Mechanic Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland was deemed the ugliest building, with VirtualTourist editors decrying its "grim, impersonal façade," while the Zizkov Television Tower in Prague was named second-ugliest building.
    “Others to make the list were Paris' Pompidou Centre, Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum and Melbourne's Federation Square.”

I confess to a quiet affection for the Pompidou Centre, but the others are deserving candidates all: perfect examples of the collision of politics and architecture.  (Federation Square might make the top just on dollars-spent-per-branch that it hit while falling out of the ugly tree.)

And while there’s stiff competition – that’s the museum on the right, by the way, that must make residents of Toronto glad that it’s too cold there to go out on the streets for six months at a time – the Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea only makes number ten this year, a remarkably poor performance for what some would consider a deserving champion.

Meanwhile, we can but dream about the most deserving fate for Wellington’s wedding cake:

 

Don’t you think it looks far more attractive as a ruin? And just think what we could save if it were brought about this week?