Advertisement

Is this really Sweden's ugliest building?

TT/The Local
TT/The Local - [email protected]
Is this really Sweden's ugliest building?
Sweden's 'ugliest building'. Photo: Johan Nilsson / TT

Sweden is known around the world for its expansive natural spaces and sleek architectural design – but have you ever wondered which is the ugliest building in the country?

Advertisement

According to a new survey, the answer lies in Malmö.

The anti-modernism Facebook group and NGO Arkitekturupproret (The Architectural Uprising) announced the winner of its 'Kasper Kalkon' prize for Sweden's ugliest new build this week, and the winner was Malmö's Kv Sofia, also known as the Rosthuset or 'Rust building'.

The apartment block, built in 2016 and home to 166 households, received almost one in six of all the votes in Arkitekturupproret's poll to find the ugliest building built during the previous year.

IN PICTURES: 8 of Sweden's weirdest looking buildings


The offending rust-coloured building. Photo: Johan Nilsson / TT

"Public buildings in suburbs which are pastiches of the Million Programme [a ten-year public housing programme during which one million new homes were built in Sweden] are deplorable," said Arkitekturupproret chairperson Sigvald Freylander.

"If you compare it with what we have built throughout history, it's just a copy of a copy of everything ugly that's been built," he told the TT newswire.

In total, 15 buildings from around Sweden were nominated for the title of Sweden's ugliest, and more than 6,000 people voted in the poll carried out on Facebook.

The prize is intended as a counterpart to the prestigious Kasper Salin prize awarded by industry organization Sveriges Arkitekter. Arkitekturupproret was launched in 2014 as a Facebook group and became a registered NGO two years later, before launching its prize in 2017.

Vocabulary

building – byggnad

ugliest – fulaste

new-build – nyproduktion

winner – vinnare

copy (noun) – kopia

We're aiming to help our readers improve their Swedish by translating vocabulary from some of our news stories. Did you find this article useful? Do you have any suggestions? Let us know.

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also