Wee sleekit cow'rin tim'rous carbuncle…

Published on Friday 23 July 2010 17:16

IT WAS to be a striking example of modern architecture and a fitting memorial to Scotland's greatest poet, but as Robert Burns wrote: "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men/Gang aft agley."

• Burns Monument Centre: 'fantastic', as Alex Salmond called it, or 'a tragedy in the purest sense of the word', according to its detractors? Picture: Complimentary

The Burns Monument Centre is now in the running to be named Britain's ugliest new building.

The centre in Kilmarnock has made the final shortlist for the 2010 Carbuncle Cup, which is given to the country's worst new architectural monstrosity.

It was reopened last year following a major refurbishment by owners East Ayrshire Council after a fire devastated the original structure in 2004.

However, locals have been left deeply unimpressed by the replacement for the historic Baronial B-listed building and have described it as a "clumpy monstrosity with pointlessly random roofs".

The centre, which is used for weddings and conferences, is in the final shortlist of six for the competition run by Building Design magazine. One person who nominated the building described it as "a tragedy in the purest sense of the word, considering what had been lost".

Its detractors also compared it to a series of bikesheds and pointed out that the centre's website does not feature any exterior shots of the building, which is next to a historic statue of the Bard by Edinburgh sculptor WG Stevenson.

The building, designed by the council's own team of architects, hosts a 3D version of some of Burns' poems and has an archive room where visitors can research their family history. When it was officially opened by First Minister Alex Salmond last year, as part of the Homecoming celebrations, he said: "This fantastic new centre will provide a significant boost to local tourism and will help entice some of the 40 million-strong Scots diaspora back to Scotland to explore their heritage and roots further."

The Burns centre is up against the Strata Tower, described as "pure visual grotesqueness" and the Bzier Apartments, also in London, described as like a "bum" and not a shapely desirable one. Other nominees are a Birmingham office block The Cube, The St Anne's Square development in Belfast and the Haymarket Hub in Newcastle.

Yesterday, Isabelle Lomholt, director of Edinburgh Architect website, said: "The memorial centre surrounding the Burns Monument completely suffocates the monument itself. It is truly astonishing that, with the materials available today, the architects still thought it was OK to strangle the monument with this heavy stone shed.

"It looks more like a kennel or a place to keep horses."

A spokeswoman for East Ayrshire Council insisted yesterday that the building had achieved all its goals.

She said: "The Burns Monument Centre has achieved what it set out to do: protect and preserve the remains of a historic building that was of great significance to the people of Kilmarnock.

"Also, to put the iconic statue of Robert Burns at the heart of a well-used and much-visited attraction in Kilmarnock's Kay Park."

She added that the "stonework from the old monument has also been used to enhance the Burns Monument Centre and stone carving, such as that of the mouse on the gable end of the building, adds to the new building, but also provides a link to Burns and to the old monument."

Ellis Woodman, the deputy editor of Building Design magazine and a Carbuncle Cup judge, said: "These buildings could have been so much better if there had been better levels of consultation in the planning process."

The six buildings on the shortlist will be considered by a panel of expert judges in consultation with architects and local residents.

The winner of the Carbuncle Cup will be announced on August 27. The prize takes its name from a 1984 speech by Prince Charles, well known for his support for traditional architecture, in which he described a proposed extension to the National Gallery as a "monstrous carbuncle".