The Shard, London(01 of12)
Open Image ModalThis new addition to London has a terrifying name and the dangerously-angled glass facade of a shattered bit of glass. (credit:Flickr:u07ch)
Tour Montparnasse, Paris(02 of12)
Open Image ModalThe worst building in Paris, the Montparnasse Tower is even more pointless than the Eiffel Tower. (credit:WikiMedia:)
Oriental Pearl Tower, Shanghai(03 of12)
Open Image ModalSome say it looks futuristic, but to us the bulbous Oriental Pearl Tower looks plain goofy. (credit:Flickr:H4g2)
Shanghai World Financial Center(04 of12)
Open Image ModalOne of the tallest buildings on the planet, the Shanghai World Financial Center resembles an oversized bottle opener--a tall, monochrome, drab, boring bottle opener. (credit:Shutterstock)
CCTV Headquarters, Beijing(05 of12)
Open Image ModalThere\'s little positive to say for Rem Koolhaas\' ode to state power in Beijing, a 44-story Mobius strip of awfulness. (credit:WikiMedia:)
Al-Mamlakah Tower, Riyadh(06 of12)
Open Image ModalWith a similar look as the Shanghai World Financial Center, this Saudi skyscraper makes our list for the same ugly bottle-opener look. (credit:WikiMedia:)
Dubai(07 of12)
Open Image ModalJust all of it. From postmodern architects gone wild to desert-chic residential towers that look more imposing than the disapproving gaze of a Middle Eastern despot, Dubai embodies the worst of contemporary skyscraper architecture, even as it remains home to the elegant and wistful Burj Khalifa, the world\'s tallest building. (credit:Shutterstock)
30 St Mary Axe aka The Gherkin, London(08 of12)
Open Image ModalWhen a building is, at best, compared to a pickle, things are not going well. Lord Norman Foster designed the former Swiss Re Tower, which now goes in name only by its (admittedly intimidating) street address. (credit:Shutterstock)
Ryugyong Hotel, Pyongyang(09 of12)
Open Image ModalNorth Korea\'s brutalist architecture reaches its pinnacle in the Ryugyong Hotel, a 105-floor Cold War relic that\'s still not open for business despite decades of construction. (credit:Flickr:Joseph A Ferris III)
Umeda Sky Building, Osaka(10 of12)
Open Image ModalWould that this Osaka, Japan skyscraper were as elegant as the Petronas Towers. Instead, the twinned towers reflect nothing of the culture of their lovely hometown nor of the ambition to supersede the sort of architectural postmodernism impossibly popularized by Michael Graves. (credit:Alamy)
International Finance Centre, Hong Kong(11 of12)
Open Image ModalBlessed with such amazing geography, one would think the port of Hong Kong could do more than muster the bland and unappealing International Finance Centre and its skyscraping Tower 2. That its rather suggestive shape inspires prurient nicknames is not an asset in its favor. (credit:Flickr:laszlo-photo)
Taipei 101(12 of12)
Open Image Modalstopgeorge:
Briefly, the world\'s tallest building. Taipei 101 was inspired by a betlenut tree (or something), it sadly resembles a post-modern corn-on-the-cob. The good thing for the citizens of Taipei is that it\'s built to withstand earthquakes and typhoons. The bad thing is that it is build to withstand earthquakes and typhoons.