Comparisons to toilets are something of a recurring theme in the 2022 list of architectural eyesores in China, as voted for by the general public and released at the end of each year. And the outright winner this year is just down the road from Nanjing!
Each year since 2010, respected Chinese architecture website, Archycy.com, makes a list of the 100 latest buildings to have raised an eyebrow or two as their aesthetic value. And that’s putting it nicely.
Then the public get involved and hundreds of thousands of votes later, we have the complete ranking. Thankfully, nothing in Jiangsu Province makes the top 10 (not even close), but #1 is in fact located so close Nanjing buses serve the city in question where China’s ugliest building is located.
That would be Ma’anshan City in Anhui Province, a mere 50 kilometers from downtown Nanjing. It is there, then, that we meet our winner; the Corpus Museum of the Human Body, pictured above, in Zhengpu Port of Ma’anshan.
Responsible for this design wonder is Wolbrand van der Vis of Dutch outfit PBV Architects. Incredulously, the Ma’anshan edifice is virtually identical to its “mother” some 35 kilometres from Amsterdam.
Some ¥350 million has already been spent on the Museum in which visitors can see, feel, and hear how the body works. Locals, however, have glossed over its educational value, preferring to just call it, “The Toilet”.
Next, we should move back to Nanjing, where we find our two home-grown “offenders” of architectural good sense, neither of which this publication believes to be befitting of their placing in the top 100.
First, the Nanjing Eco-tech Island Exhibition Centre. Located in Jiangxinzhou, the Centre has dramatic roof lines which allegedly leave a deep impression on visitors. The eight peaks of the roof are also intended to invoke our city’s Sun-yat Sen Mausoleum. Nanjing Eco-tech Island Exhibition Centre is ranked #69 on this year’s architectural wall of shame.
Then we come to Yincheng Kinma Q+ Community. Positioned as a youth community in Maqun, the facility offers space for 940 shared living apartments; private bedrooms complimented by shared facilities, including kitchen, gym, laundry, etc. Green aluminium plates make up the facade, with large inclined windows reflecting the sky from different angles. #53 on this year’s list.
Away from Nanjing, we find two examples which are truly deserving of their ranking in China’s 100 ugliest buildings for 2022.
First stop, an hour and a half’s drive north of Nanjing, we find the Yangzhou Aviation Museum. Over some 6,000 square metres and as the first aviation cultural complex in China, the Museum’s main building is inspired by the city’s “Yangzhou Lantern” intangible cultural heritage. #48.
Rounding out the four monstrosities in Jiangsu, the Nantong Star Lake City Plaza, a complex so ugly even Archcy themselves have difficulty in coming up with any kind of architectural reasoning. “The aluminum lines allow the modern and fashionable sense of business to be transferred. The building has created a space that can flow.” We couldn’t have put it better ourselves. #32.
And for interested readers, another toilet comparison has been made to the Guangzhou Aviation Tyre Science Centre, at #4 in this year’s ranking. With its role in part as an aviation tire manufacturing test base, the Centre is referred to as the largest tire on Earth. But that’s not fooling anyone.
