DENVER (KDVR) — Denver International Airport is apparently enough of an eyesore to those across social media to get it ranked among the nation’s ugliest buildings.
According to researchers conducting a beauty contest of sorts over at Buildworld in the United Kingdom, the recognizable white tent-poled roof at Denver International Airport has apparently instigated widespread public condemnation and now finds itself among the Top 10 Eyesore Buildings in the U.S.
Buildworld set out to find the buildings and structures around the world that people often described as ugly online. The writers did this by rifling through design-themed tweets posted about each building before using a sentiment analysis tool to break down just how many were negative.
Denver airport is the only airport on the list of ugliest buildings in the country. It is joined by government buildings, sports arenas, a casino and a New York City skyscraper.
The appearance of DIA was a breaking of the mold according to its architects who designed the 130- to 150-foot tall roof peaks meant to reflect the snowtopped peaks of the region.
“We turned the building upside down, relocating the building’s mechanical infrastructure from the roof to underground,” Fentress Architects said of their unique approach to engineering DIA. “This allowed our vision for the enormous, typically inhumane scale of the main terminal to be transformed into an open, light-filled volume.”
According to Fentress Architects, a conflicting survey released by the experts over at the American Institute of Architects named DIA the No. 4 spot on a list of favorite American architectural landmarks.
While Denver International Airport certainly is unique, its design doesn’t match the other architecture on the list, which is generally a brutalist design with blocky construction.