Hardenberg town hall the ugliest building in Netherlands

The Hardenberg town hall, designed by architects Branimir Medic and Pero Puljiz of architect firm Cie, has been voted the ugliest building in the Netherlands. This reversed beauty contest was run by newspaper Cobouw. More than 5 thousand people cast their vote for one of the 7 nominated ugly buildings in the Netherlands. The Hardenberg town hall was voted the ugliest by a wide margin, receiving 58 percent of the votes. Second place went to the Museum de Fudatie in Zwolle with 12 percent of the votes and the Van Kinsbergen College in Elburg came in third with 10 percent of the votes. Architect Medic told the newspaper that it is right that the public judges architects' work as their work is in the public space. He is not too bothered by the fact that their building is considered the ugliest building in the country. "Architecture is much too complex to just be tested on the impossible criterion of ugliness." he said. Medic also pointed out that in 2010 their building Stadshaard in Enschede was voted as the ugliest building by NRC readers, and later that year NRC named the building the most interesting building of the year. According to him that means "that only good architects dare to take risks of designing something challenging."

'Winnaar': het gemeentehuis van Hardenberg is het lelijkste gebouw @CobouwNL pic.twitter.com/UmgGvGDgX7

— Ruud Ploeg (@ruudploegfoto) November 3, 2015