MINNEAPOLIS — Vikings fans are known the world over for their "Purple Pride," a loyalty to their football team win or lose and all things associated with it.
Those purple fans may be turning red with anger, after a study of sorts by Buildworld, a building materials supplier-merchant based in the U.K. that names U.S. Bank Stadium among the ugliest structures in the world. Yes, IN THE WORLD.
An article published on Jan. 11 details the study, that involved curating a long list of buildings from across the globe that are "often" described as ugly. Buildworld then used a so-called "sentiment analysis tool" (what?) called HuggingFace to look at the percentage of posts on Twitter that are negative about each building's design.
Among the search keywords used in the searches are "design," "beautiful," "view," "looks," "architectural," "style," "ugly," "inspired," "wonderful," "horrid," "concept' and "aesthetic."
When the smoke from the number crunching was done, there was little doubt about the winner of the ugly title: The Scottish Parliament Building sits atop the list with 42.07% percent of analyzed Tweets slagging on the structure's design.
U.S. Bank Stadium sits squarely at 12th ugliest, with 15.47% negative Twitter posts. In between the two are Washington's J. Edgar Hoover Building, North Korea's Ryugyong Hotel (a concrete pyramid known as "The Hotel of Doom"), Denver International Airport and Trump Tower.
Buildworld says The Bank finishes higher on the ugly scale when the list is limited to U.S. buildings, finishing in 7th.
A quick Twitter crawl finds numerous posts that describe the stadium as "ugly," with some getting more detailed: "Unspeakably ugly," "An ugly looking turtle thing," with one person even saying the design "literally makes me throw up inside."
Another shared "Every time I drive by (U.S. Bank Stadium) I die a little inside, it's so ugly and ruins the skyline."
It's no secret that U.S. Bank Stadium has taken plenty of hard knocks for its sound quality when it comes to concerts. Early shows were followed by heavy criticism from customers, and despite the stadium's efforts to address those concerns the concert experience continues to be far from perfect.
To be fair, many have lauded The Bank for its intimate seating design, endless supply of natural light and pivoting glass doors that open on nice days to showcase the downtown Minneapolis skyline.
U.S. Bank Stadium was completed in 2016 at a cost of $1.1 billion.
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