CALLING ALL CHELSEA RESIDENTS.....THE JUDGES NEED YOU NOW!

A TYPICAL NATIONAL CARBUNCLE PRIZEWINNER

How often do we look around Chelsea and wonder how such and such a monstrosity ever got planning consent?

The Chelsea Barracks is one such example of a monster suited to Dubai but not elegant Chelsea.

MISARA has set up an award...the Carbuncle Award and Chelsea residents have just one week to nominate a local building which should never have been allowed to see the light of day. 

Please read below and hurry with your nomination/s: you have just seven days to get them in.

To: All Residents' Associations in Chelsea

Dear Fellow Residents,

Late last year the Milner Street Area Residents' Association (MISARA) announced that it would inaugurate an annual award for the ugliest new building in Chelsea, to be known as the Chelsea Carbuncle. Residents and others are encouraged to submit nominations for the award, for which the winner will be chosen by a panel of three distinguished judges, of whom details are given below. "Chelsea" means that part of RBK&C south of Fulham Road, Walton Street and Pont Street, "new building" means anything built in recent years, and the judges will be at liberty to confer such other awards as they see fit.

Do please circulate this information to all your members, and encourage them to submit nominations by sending an email with photographs of the buildings to our email address (above): milnerresidents@pobox.com.

Timeline

The deadline for nominations is Monday 21 October at 23.59. The judges will be meeting on 28 October for a tour of the nominated buildings. The winners will be announced at MISARA's Annual General Meeting on 5 November.

MISARA has purchased three wooden spoons as prizes, and will invite representatives of the architects, the developer and the planning officers to the AGM to collect them. The chairman of the judges, Dr. John Martin Robinson, will make a short speech to explain the judges' decisions. Photographers will be on hand to record the occasion.

Acknowledgement

In 2006 Building Design, the specialist weekly magazine widely read by the architectural profession initiated a popular annual competition for the ugliest new building in the UK, with the winner receiving the Carbuncle Cup. Candidates are submitted by readers across the country and the winner is selected by a panel of judges from a shortlist of six ugly buildings publicised with short descriptions and photographs on the magazine's website. We are happy to acknowledge this with gratitude as our original inspiration for the Chelsea Carbuncle.

Pious Aspiration

We hope that the annual award of the Chelsea Carbuncle, of which the award in 2019 will be the first, will lead over time to a visible improvement in new building design in Chelsea.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Best wishes,

Richard Grantley

Chairman, MISARA

Details of the judges:

Dr John Martin Robinson is one of Britain's best known architectural historians. 

Will Palin is Director of Conservation at the Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich.

Anthony Delarue is a distinguished church architect.