The London skyline is dominated by this thuggish comedy villain of a building, which has melted cars and caused winds strong enough to knock people over

It has singed shopfronts, melted cars and caused great gusts of wind to sweep pedestrians off their feet. Now the Walkie Talkie tower, the bulbous comedy villain of London’s skyline, has been bestowed with the Carbuncle Cup by Building Design (BD) magazine for the worst building of the year.

Responsible for a catalogue of catastrophes, it is hard to imagine a building causing more damage if it tried. It stands at 20 Fenchurch Street, way outside the city’s planned “cluster” of high-rise towers, on a site never intended for a tall building. It looms thuggishly over its low-rise neighbours like a broad-shouldered banker in a cheap pinstriped suit. And it gets fatter as it rises, to make bigger floors at the more lucrative upper levels, forming a literal diagram of greed.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A literal diagram of greed … 20 Fenchurch Street/the Walkie Talkie. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Guardian

“The building with more up top,” trumpets the marketing material – but it is others who must live with its overbearing bulk, which now lumbers into views across London from practically every angle. From the South Bank, it squats straight ahead like a misplaced pint glass, blotting out its elegant neighbours. From further east, its silhouette is reminiscent of a sanitary towel, flapping behind Tower Bridge. The headquarters of the Royal Institute of Town Planners stands two streets away. “It’s a daily reminder,” sighs one employee, “never to let such a planning disaster ever happen again.”

Still, in the eyes of the City’s former chief planner, Peter Rees, it is a great success. It was granted permission, he maintains, because it operates as “the figurehead at the prow of our ship,” complete with “a viewing platform where you can look back to the vibrancy of the City’s engine room behind you.”

“The building’s raison d’etre was to provide a new kind of Assembly Rooms,” he adds, “a place that City types could go in the evening to harrumph and hurroar, then stagger back to Liverpool Street station – and it’s worked enormously well for that purpose. Coincidentally, they were able to put some offices underneath it.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest From the east it is reminiscent of a sanitary towel flapping behind Tower Bridge … the Walkie Talkie. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Guardian



The building was crowned with a Sky Garden, a babylonian jungle in the clouds that would be the pride of the Square Mile, framed as not just a place for bankers to drink, but a public space accessible to all. The reality is anything but. If you book three days in advance, or reserve a table at one of the overpriced dining concepts, you can go through airport-style security and be treated to a meagre pair of rockeries, in a space designed with all the finesse of a departure lounge. A hefty cage of steelwork wraps around in all directions, obscuring much of the view, while the restaurants rise up in a boxy stack of glass portable cabins. The more you pay, the worse the view gets: at the very top of the gourmet ziggurat, you’re as far from the windows as possible.

The planners have since raised concerns that what has been built doesn’t match the approved plans, but the underwhelming roof terrace is the least of the Walkie Talkie’s problems. Before it was even open, it was found that its south-facing concave glass facade channelled the sun’s rays into a deadly beam of heat, capable of melting the bumper of a Jaguar, blistering painted shopfronts and singeing carpets – with temperatures hot enough to fry an egg on the pavement.



It was a field day for sub-editors, coining new nicknames like Walkie-scorchie and Fryscraper, but it was a costly mistake, requiring the addition of sun shading. The architect, Rafael Viñoly, maintains that such measures were part of the original design, but they were “value engineered” out of the scheme.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Walkie-scorchie or Fryscraper … whichever, it is a costly mistake. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

He should know: he has history with death-ray buildings, having designed a hotel in Las Vegas with a similar concave facade that scorched sunbathers’ hair and melted poolside loungers. He’s since tried to capitalise on the phenomenon, designing a building in China that focuses sun rays on an energy receptor, but it remains unbuilt.

Still, not content with burning people, the Walkie Talkie started blowing them away. The building was found to have a rather embarrassing wind problem after the downdraft caused by the 37-storey tower was accused of almost blowing pedestrians into the road and whisking food trolleys away this summer. The phenomenon has prompted the planners to introduce tougher guidelines and insist on independent wind studies.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest In a news report from 2013, a reporter proves that the Walkie Talkie reflects light hot enough to fry an egg. Link to video

“It is a challenge finding anyone who has something positive to say about this building,” says Carbuncle Cup jury chair and BD editor Thomas Lane. “The result is Londoners now have to suffer views of this bloated carbuncle crashing into London’s historic skyline like an unwelcome guest at a party from miles away.”



The building beat stiff competition in a vintage year for ugly architecture. Other projects that made it on to the shortlist include a student housing complex in North Acton, designed by Careyjones Chapmantolcher, a mean-minded mountain of rabbit-hutch rooms that prompted a local resident to stand for parliament on a “ban inappropriate development” platform. It was joined on the list by the monstrous Parliament House apartment tower in Lambeth by Keith Williams, a lumpen dog’s dinner of a thing that looks like Elephant and Castle’s Strata Tower (a previous Carbuncle Cup winner) put through a mangle. It is the architect’s first foray into tall buildings, and we can only hope it will be his last.