Ten horrors on X list

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The idea has already been the basis of a Channel 4 series, Demolition, in which 12 hated buildings were identified.

Now a writer for Pol icy Exchange, the Tory think tank, is proposing that it becomes government policy.

In a Policy Exchange report called Living for the City, James O'Shaughnessy argues that, through a combination of public votes and professional opinion, particularly vile buildings be "X-listed".

Local authorities would then be both pressured and helped to take action to demolish the officially designated monsters. Government agents of doom (black-clad no doubt, masked perhaps, and straddling motorbikes) would enforce the will of the people. It would be a spectacular example of government policy being shaped by a catchy TV format. It would certainly not be the last.

But no sooner has one savoured the prospect of this national tumbril for dodgy design than objections crowd in. It would cost a lot of money. It would be the opposite of the environmentally friendly policies that David Cameron so publicly supports, as demolition and rebuilding is hugely wasteful of resources.

Imagine living on an X-listed estate. If you owned a flat its value would plummet. The local council would have what little excuse it needed not to bother with maintenance.

This might be bearable if you knew that the estate really would be rebuilt but, even if Cameronian taste-enforcers were enthusiastically belabouring your local authority, there is no certainty it would get round to any action.

So a spasm of aesthetic loathing may not be the best basis for regeneration policy but we can still enjoy the fantasy and contemplate how London might be if its blots were removed.

Policy Exchange, in a fit of sense, says that X-listed buildings have to be economic and social as well as visual failures. Unfortunately, this would rule out some of London's worst, which are financially perfectly healthy. Indeed, the buoyancy of London is such that economic failures are hard to find. Better, then, to ignore scruples and allow no amnesty for the well-heeled but hideous.

The 10 worst

The riverbank between Lambeth Palace and Battersea Power Station

A bit sweeping this but there is nothing of merit on the entire stretch and some real monsters, including the squat toad that is MI6 and St George's Wharf, which architects polled by the Architects' Journal regularly nominate as the worst building in the world. Explosives should be laid under the foundations of the egregious Vauxhall Tower, proposed for a site next to St George's Wharf, to be detonated as soon as it is finished. This swathe also includes the penthouse famous for housing Jeffrey Archer.

City Hall

With its weird shape it wants to be hot and sexy like the Brazilian modernist architecture it distantly emulates. But it's more Clacton than Copacabana, with an unrelenting greyness. It's a filing cabinet on drugs, rock 'n' roll scored for paper clips.

Heygate Estate, Elephant and Castle

Prime example of a failed Seventies estate, idealistically conceived but disastrous in practice. Likely to come down under Southwark's current plans for the area.

Trocadero

I suppose exploitative tourist tat has to go somewhere but why not in an impoverished northern city such as Hartlepool, where they could do with the investment?

Old Street roundabout

First transport engineers made the place as ugly as possible, with roads, underpasses and beige tiles. Then office blocks of exceptional mediocrity were built. Then a Nineties effort to cheer it up, with a piece of bent metal overhead, only added to the visual misery.

Oxford Street, between Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road

Technically there are some buildings of interest on this stretch but that counts for nothing in the face of the retail miasma at ground level. Forget ideas such as pedestrianisation and trams. Just rebuild.

Imax cinema, Waterloo

The effect of the Waterloo Imax on its surroundings is less than vitalising. Originally, its big glass drum was decorated with a giant Howard Hodgkin artwork but more recently it has been used as a giant advertising hoarding, which presumably makes more money.

Heathrow airport

What Heathrow says about Britain: you are now entering a country devoid of charm or grace, whose sole guiding principle is making as much money as possible out of retail opportunities, while spending as little as possible on quality. Tear it down and start again, possibly on another site.

The Dome

Please put it out of its misery, and us out of ours. Whatever slight thrill might once have been offered by its size and fairly interesting structure has been obscured by its failure. Supposed to regenerate its site, it has blighted it as effectively as if it were a nuclear waste store.

Juxon House

An office building that is supposed to "respect" the neighbouring cathedral of St Paul's, by aping its classical style. But its mimicry is no more respectful than Rory Bremner is of his victims. And it's less funny.