5 contenders for the ugliest house in the world

Have you also wasted plenty of sleepless nights scrolling through pictures of the most beautiful houses and dreaming of owning one of them? Stunning buildings jump out at us from every corner of the internet, and nobody is surprised any more by their perfect proportions and state-of-the-art features. The ugliest houses in the world, on the other hand, are rather overlooked, even though they include several interesting specimens that are definitely worth a look.

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but the owners of some houses must simply have impaired vision if they consider their homes beautiful. Of course, a roof over your head has certain merits (and aesthetics need not be one of them), and any home of your own is better than none, but that does not mean some residences do not deserve the label of the ugliest houses in the world.

Fancy living in a strange gemstone?

This is not a luxury container house whose beauty surprises everyone. This small, ahem, oddly shaped gemstone in a garish canary colour is part of a group of buildings known as the Sanzhi UFO Houses in Taiwan. It was rumoured that these houses were cursed because they were built on top of an ancient burial ground. They were never finished and were instead demolished in 2010. That does not change the fact that they could easily have competed for the title of the ugliest houses in the world.

They have a rather dark history. Construction began in 1978, and the site was meant to be a holiday resort for American military officers. However, the project was abandoned in 1980 because of several disturbing incidents. Near the site there were deaths in car accidents and suicides, allegedly caused by a statue of a Chinese dragon being split in half when the gates to the resort were opened. Other stories claimed it was a former burial ground of Dutch soldiers who haunt the place at night.

It could only be pink…

Sometimes all it takes to be a candidate for the ugliest house in the world is a hideous (and unmissable) paint job. The bubblegum-pink “beauty” you can see in the picture is known as the Emoji House. It is located in Manhattan Beach, California, and recently came onto the property market for an incredible 1.749 million dollars. If it makes you feel queasy (as it does me), you can of course repaint the whole façade in a different colour (for example with paint for façades of old houses), but you will not get the image of the garish pink monstrosity out of your head for at least a few more years.

Neighbours confirm that it is mainly the nature of the emojis that they find mocking. The emoji on the upper floor shows a smiling face with its tongue sticking out and eyes pointing in different directions, crowned with long, prominent eyelashes. On the ground floor there is a similar emoji with a zipped mouth, which supposedly means “shut up”. The artist who spray-painted the house, known as Z the Art, said on their Instagram account that they only wanted to spread joy and contentment through positive smiley faces.

The colourful mess is actually a hotel

The list of the ugliest houses in the world also includes a beauty from Slovakia. It is actually a hotel, specifically Hotel Spirit in Bratislava. It looks like a pile of brightly coloured rubbish and is so ugly that it is actually quite cool. The rooms look just as crazy. You can stay there from just 39 euros a night, which is probably the only positive news in this case.

Experts believe the building combines the styles of Hundertwasser and Gaudí, both with certain deviations in creative expression. Local residents sometimes describe the hotel as “a repulsive horror that shocks them”, but in reality this colourful and original structure is more likely to amuse… and it is well known that a bad reputation can, paradoxically, be the best advertising. It is said that nobody can say exactly what the dominant colour on the façade is of this unusual Bratislava building, or whether there is an eye, a dragonfly or something else entirely on its top.

The most squashed house in the world

Unlike the Bratislava “beauty”, this house is definitely not cool. It is located in Belgium (you do not want to know where), and according to architects it is “the most depressing mouse mat they have ever seen.” Irony does not really work here, because at first glance it is the most squeezed house between two houses, and it is a truly unsettling sight. I am not sure who the neighbours are. Perhaps it is the Belgian equivalent of Homebase, or perhaps just a large shed. This little house is a very long way from the world’s most luxurious villas.

A block of flats in Amsterdam

Finally, I have one question for you: What do you do with unwanted houses that nobody wants anywhere? Of course! You take them to the local rubbish tip. Oops, my mistake, this is actually a prefabricated block of flats in Amsterdam. ATTENTION! In this case, the lack of aesthetics is made up for by the affordability of these flats. 
Times are coming when the city is becoming extremely expensive and owning a home is becoming an unattainable dream, especially for young families.

In this case, Amsterdam’s hideous light grey and pinkish-yellow residential blocks remain affordable, and the rent in them is calculated from the owner’s income. So slowly but surely they are becoming a monument to the Amsterdam that once existed, in which almost all space was evenly divided and affordable, much like living in a caravan.