The Worst of Wellington

Todays Dominion has a feature on the Worst Buildings in Wellington. Most of them I agree with so I thought I would list them here with some of the comments from the paper and of course a few of my own!

11. Circa Theatre (adjacent to Te Papa), criticised for having its back to the city, and not making use of its 360 degree site. To be fair the new paint job makes it look worse than it did originally and I think there are worse buildings - the Museum Hotel! (Disagree)

9th Equal. Environment House and Defence House, these are awful and completely lack any sort of design at all - brand spanking new and are basically just boxes with windows - missed opportunities. (Agree!!!)

8. Lyall Bay Megacentre, I disagree with this, its better that buildings of this kind (Warehouse etc) are tucked away in an industrial area like this - if it were closer to the city I would agree but in this case its harmless. (Disagree)

7. Renaissance Apartments, these are probably better known as the weird plain box style apartments on top of Burger King in Manners Mall. So plain and boring on top of a stunning building. (Agree)

6. Galleria on Tory, the ugly building tacked on top of Harvey Norman and the gym. The balconies have picket fences - ridiculous. (Agree)

4th Equal. Marickian and City Lodge Apartments, ugly box-like characterless structures built very cheaply - targetting students. Cheap and nasty the sad thing is there are plenty of other examples - the ones next to the Southern Cross! (Agree)

3. Courtenay Apartments, you will know this by sight if not by name - the ugly mint green apartment building with its crude attempt at blending in with the heritage listed building below. Prime site - awful building. (Agree!!)

2. Queen's Wharf Events Centre and Shell Office Complex (previously the Retail Centre), I always think criticism of this is a little harsh - yes its not pretty as such, but neither are the old sheds in the same area! I like the way Shell are using the old retail centre as their NZ Head Office - all open plan, very cool. Still this could have been built elsewhere, or at least built in a way that wasn't quite so inward looking. (Agree but further down the list - Overseas terminal is worse)

1. Wellington City New World, criticised for being built the wrong way around. If you swapped the carpark and building around you would have a direct view from the Basin to the waterfront. Poor use of space, plain characterless warehouse on a huge prime site, just blocking views. A supermarket could have easily been incorporated into the bottom of another development. Just plain ugly. (Agree!)