- A number of buildings around the globe have earned a reputation for being examples of ugly architecture. Others are considered to be fairly divisive in terms of design and functionality.
- Abandoned hotels, government buildings, and even student dormitories have been called some of the most disliked buildings of all time.
- North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel, also called the "Hotel of Doom," has stood empty for over 30 years, sparking criticism about its design and construction.
- Kaden Tower in Louisville, Kentucky, has been compared to a tissue box and has also been called an "an embarrassing architectural blunder."
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Although ugliness is in the eye of the beholder, some of the world's most hated buildings have been the subjects of derision and mockery for years.
That said, like any art form, architecture is pretty subjective, which can lead to a lot of strong opinions about certain designs.
Here are some of the world's most commonly criticized and disliked buildings.
People in Massachusetts wanted to demolish Boston's City Hall before its construction was even completed.
Completed in 1968, this building is an example of brutalist architecture — a controversial style known for its bare, blocky shapes and frequent use of exposed concrete.
It's also earned plenty of criticism over the years for being "ugly" and "anti-urban."
"City Hall is so ugly that its insane upside-down wedding-cake columns and windswept plaza distract from the building's true offense. Its great crime isn't being ugly; it's being anti-urban ... The primary function of cities is clustering people together, but City Hall goes to great lengths to repel them," wrote columnist Paul McMorrow in the Boston Globe in 2013.
In addition, many people in Massachusetts called for the destruction of Boston's City Hall before the structure was even fully built, according to Current Affairs magazine.
North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel, also called the "Hotel of Doom," has stood empty for over 30 years, sparking criticism about its design and construction.
Considered to be the world's tallest unoccupied building, the Ryugyong Hotel has been nicknamed the "Hotel of Doom."
It's also been described as "the worst designed building in the world" and one of "the world's ugliest hotels" by writers for publications like Esquire and The Telegraph.
When construction began on the building in 1987, the Ryugyong Hotel was designed to become an impressive masterpiece: a building taller than the Eiffel Tower complete with 3,000 rooms and five revolving restaurants, according to CNN Style.
Decades later, this hotel has yet to open its doors to guests.
Read more: 15 things you didn't know you could get for free at a hotel
Lincoln Plaza has been called Britain's ugliest building.
Called a "putrid pugilistic horror show that should never have been built" by architect and critic Ike Ijeh, the Lincoln Plaza has also faced its share of shame.
Winner of the 2016 Carbuncle Cup, an architecture "award" given to the "ugliest building in the United Kingdom" completed in the past 12 months, the housing tower's bold, geographic design is not universally beloved.
Although it's often been called "Britain's ugliest building," all of its homes sold out before they were even constructed. And Galliard Homes, the property developers behind the building, think it's clear that at least some people like this large structure.
"Architectural design is art, and like all art, a matter of personal tastes ... the scheme sold out to buyers, so clearly the project is liked by the purchasers," Galliard Homes told Business Insider in 2016, in response to winning the Carbuncle Cup.
Simmons Hall at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has plenty of fans in the architecture community, but sometimes its residents have a different opinion.
Although dormitories are often about more function than form, this student living hall is well-known for its distinctive (and sometimes divisive) design.
Affectionately nicknamed "The Sponge," MIT's Simmons Hall is home for many undergrad students at the university, and the building remains a subject of interest for architecture enthusiasts around the world.
People on the campus, however, sometimes have a different take.
"The students and their parents consistently made references to Simmons Hall as being a fortress, a metal block, and a metal sponge," said Joseph E. Pollack in Architecture Week in 2006, after chatting with potential new residents of the building.
On the plus side, Simmons Hall offers residents private bathrooms and a ball pit, which is an awesome amenity in any building.
The Orange County Government Center in Goshen, New York, sparked a debate over whether some buildings are too ugly to deserve restoration and protection.
In 2012, the Orange-County government building prompted the release of an opinion piece in The New York Times titled "Are Some Buildings Too Ugly to Survive?"
The provocative take on this aging example of brutalist architecture, the style famed for bare building materials and boxy construction, prompted others in the architecture community to defend architect Paul Rudolph's creation.
"The 1960s were a remarkable moment of social reform … Now people think public buildings should be more flowery, but these were times when people did tough projects ... Rudolph's work is pure, but the beauty is in its austerity. There are no additions to make it polite or cute. It is what it is," the late architect Zaha Hadid told The New York Times in 2015.
After facing damage from storms and mold, the building's fate was uncertain — for a time it looked like total demolition was seriously on the table.
But, fortunately, coming generations can continue to appreciate and puzzle over this distinct work of architecture.
Following a $74 million renovation that wrapped up around 2018, the Orange County government building's iconic facade has been preserved, and its interiors have been renovated and modernized, according to the Times Herald-Record.
Kaden Tower in Louisville, Kentucky, has been compared to a large tissue box.
With its cantilever design and grillwork, the Kaden Tower is a distinctive 15-floor office building.
It's also been referred to as "an embarrassing architectural blunder," called "entirely inappropriate," and compared to a giant tissue box, according to the Louisville Historical website.
The building also features a plaque on its base that acknowledges it is both "controversial" and a "jewel."
The Žižkov Television Tower in Prague, Czech Republic, has been called "the second-ugliest building in the world."
A structure with roots in the 1980s, the Žižkov Television Tower in Prague, Czech Republic, has been nicknamed "the second-ugliest building in the world," according to CBC Radio.
The building itself sticks out amongst the rest of Prague's charming architecture, and it stands as a divisive reminder of the city's former communist government.
Over a decade ago, to make the "eyesore" more unique, artist David Černý installed sculptures of giant babies crawling up the side of the tower.
First added to the tower as a temporary exhibit, the "Babies" sculptures were recently reinstalled with more durable construction, according to Expats.cz. Although the tower itself may inspire mixed feelings, the sculptures of babies are quite beloved.
Oftentimes known as "the most hated building in Canada," the ROM Crystal in Toronto faced serious criticism when it was first built.
When it first opened in 2007, the Royal Ontario Museum's Michael Lee-Chin Crystal did not receive much love for its design, which is comprised of glass, steel, sloped walls, and angle joints.
"Daniel Libeskind's addition to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto surpasses the ugliness of bland functional buildings by being both ugly and useless," wrote Philip Kennicott, art and architecture critic, in The Washington Post in 2009.
Kennicott also questioned the wisdom of creating a building with slanted walls for the purpose of displaying art.
That said, in the past decade or so, some Torontonians have come to see the building as both an important addition to the city's landscape and a beloved landmark.
"Architecture needs time to sink in," said Alexander Josephson, cofounder of architecture and design firm Partisans, in Azure magazine.