Architectural Uprising names Simmons Hall winner of the 2025 Aesthetic Atrocity Award
Mark Jarzombek, Professor of Architecture: “Yes, it has some problems, but there are so many truly ugly buildings in the world”
Vivian Hir–The Tech
Simmons Hall wins Aesthetic Atrocity Award
On April 10, Architectural Uprising announced that Simmons Hall was the winner of the first annual Aesthetic Atrocity Award, given to the ugliest building in the U.S. According to the organization’s press release, Simmons received first place in the “Design Against Humanity” category. The awards ceremony will be held at the Beauty and Ugliness in Architecture Conference in Oslo, Norway from May 2-4. Runner-ups for the award include the San Francisco Federal Building and the Ascent at Roebling's Bridge in the greater Cincinnati area.
Architectural Uprising, an international group founded from a Swedish Facebook community in 2014, favors traditional and classical aesthetics and opposes modernist architecture. The organization criticized Simmons Hall for its “decidedly impractical structure” and for being “plain ugly and terribly to look at.” Committee member Michael Damiant cited the building’s “inhuman scale, awkward structure, and haphazardly placed windows” as reasons for receiving the award.
Despite Architectural Uprising’s harsh criticism, Simmons has received many architecture awards, including the 2004 ACEC (American Council of Engineering Companies) Engineering Excellence Honor Award and the 2003 National AIA (American Institute of Architects) Design Award.
Designed by Steven Holl, the dormitory was constructed from 1999 to 2002, opening in fall 2002. When designing Simmons, Holl hoped that the 350-person residence hall, built to resemble the shape of a sponge, would capture the concept of “porosity.”
In order to embody this quality, Holl focused on constructing “five large-scale openings” across the building. According to Holl's website, “These large, dynamic openings (roughly corresponding to the “houses” in the dorm) are the lungs of the building, bringing natural light down and moving air up through the section.” Furthermore, the residence hall was conceived of four individual buildings, each with a different porosity: vertical, horizontal, diagonal, and all-over.
In an email statement to The Tech, Steven Holl stated that the dorm’s unique design, including its many windows and curved surfaces, stemmed from a desire for each room and section to have its own “individual character.” Holl believed that the building’s distinct personality would help “contribute to the vitality and the identity of the residents.”
Architectural Uprising denounces modernist architecture
The Tech reached out to Michelle Sofge, Herald Editor of the Classic Planning Institute and a judge for the Aesthetic Atrocity Award. According to Sofge, many of the committee members knew of Simmons Hall before reviewing began. The committee began with a list of more than 50 American buildings compiled from existing lists and suggestions from the public. Each committee member then evaluated every building based on factors including proportionality and perceived symmetry. Despite some “intense discussions among committee members,” Sofge stated that the group “was very satisfied with the result” at the end.
Architects and residents react to the award
When Steven Holl first learned about Simmons receiving the award, he thought that “the photos they used were beautiful.” Holl visited Simmons just three months ago, and found that the residents were “very happy in the forward-looking spirit of MIT.”
For Holl, the building and the students are “future focused,” contrasting sharply with the views of Architectural Uprising, which he sees as aligned with President Trump’s traditionalist architectural agenda. Holl criticized Trump’s recent executive order of “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture,” calling it “backward-looking,” and in a March 13 Dezeen op-ed, he compared Trump’s architectural preferences to those of Stalin and Hitler. Noting the three leaders’ opposition to modernism and preference for classical architecture, Holl wrote that to suppress modernist architecture is to suppress “any architecture focused on optimism for the future.”
Despite Architectural Uprising’s harsh critique of Simmons, Holl said he is honored that the building is the “lighting rod of modernism,” given that modernist architecture has been highly debated in recent history. “Simmons Hall is still seen as provocative, groundbreaking architecture, drawing negative reactions from those resisting a modern, forward focus,” he wrote.
MIT Professor in Architecture Mark Jarzombek disagrees with Architectural Uprising’s declaration of Simmons as the ugliest building in the U.S. “Yes, it has some problems, but there are so many truly ugly buildings in the world; it makes no sense to pick this one,” he wrote in an email to The Tech. Jarzombek believes that the group should instead consider buildings that “most people can agree on are ugly.”
MIT undergraduate students expressed mixed opinions about the architectural design of the building. Simmons resident Ellie Feng ’28 appreciated the “very distinctive” windows, highlighting the residence hall’s wavy walls and chalk art for having “so much personality.” Caleb Pascale ’28 acknowledged that the building might not be “aesthetically pleasing on the outside,” but admired its overall unique design. “It’s undeniably visually interesting with the shape and windows [and their colors],” he wrote.
Simmons resident Joy Pan ’28 found the curved walls “inconvenient” because they “drastically limit furniture arrangements.” Pan admitted that she considered Simmons to be “pretty ugly” when she was a prefrosh, though nowadays she doesn’t see the building as unattractive as before. Luke Ingalls ’28 mentioned that he liked the interior, but found the exterior to be “very ugly.” “I really don’t like how it’s just a prism with small windows and random shapes,” he wrote.
Beyond the exterior: Simmons Hall’s functionality
Although thoughts on the aesthetics of Simmons Hall’s architecture varied, a number of former and current Simmons Hall residents took issue with the building’s functionality — an indirect result of the building’s sponge-like architecture. Adeline Vining ’28 disliked the building for its dim lighting, lack of good social spaces, and difficulty finding the staircases. Feng shared Vining’s concerns, commenting that the “room lighting is so drab and dim that it makes me sad at night.”
Evan Lofink ’27 thought that the design is “novel in a genuinely interesting way,” but finds the interior design unhelpful for promoting a “healthy social life.” Simmons Hall is divided into three towers (A, B, C), causing some floors to be disconnected and the overall building to be disjointed. As a result, higher floors are composed of fewer residents, whereas most of the lower floors have longer hallways with more people. Pan wrote, “Though the discontinuous floors help somewhat to create smaller communities within Simmons, the lack of floor culture makes this mostly meaningless.”
On the other hand, Dylan Rodriguez Barrera ’26 liked the separated towers because they feel more “cozy,” whereas “super-long hallways” make him feel a “bit uncomfortable.” Similarly, Anwar Atufa ’27 appreciated the separated tower structure for fostering connections. “I live in B tower, and I’ve gotten to know most of my neighbors because of how few of them there are,” he wrote. “I probably wouldn’t have achieved this on one of the floors that isn’t separated by a tower.” Although Atufa recognizes that Simmons has issues with its functionality, he finds the “impractical elements charming because they allow students to come together in antagonizing it.”
Reflecting the overarching concept of porosity, “the permeable openings between and within the four buildings were developed as meeting places, terraces, lounges, and activated passages,” Holl wrote.
Former MIT Director of Planning O. Robert Simha MCP ’57 views Simmons Hall as a failure in regards to functionality. Simha was the Director of Planning from 1960 to 2000 and was involved in the planning and construction of Simmons Hall. In a phone interview with The Tech, Simha stated that he disagreed with Holl’s approach that focused more on “design personality” because he believed that the design did not satisfy the social, physical, and functional aspects of a dorm. According to “The Pre-History of Simmons Hall” by Jeff Roberts ’02 MCP ’03, Holl did not have prior experience designing student dormitories at the time.
“The public spaces that were created, particularly the common spaces, are very limited in their ability to perform the wide variety of functions that we hoped to provide the residents,” Simha said. For instance, the two-story Multi-Purpose Room (MPR), which features a movie projector and seating for 125 people, is limited to large events. “The big common room turned out to be this kind of theater space that can’t be used for much else other than as an audience and performance facility,” Simha said.
In addition to issues with the dorm’s functionality, Simha said that the construction of Simmons Hall was very expensive, as costs exceeded the budget in tens of millions. According to an MIT News article in 2000, construction was projected to cost $40 million, but the final cost amounted to $92.5 million in 2003.
For Simha, the main issue at hand isn’t necessarily the exterior, but whether the building has met its purpose, criteria, and objectives. “It’s not just a question of taste,” Simha said. “It’s a question of how we apply the high standards of the Institute to everything that we do.”