FBI building in Washington, D.C., 'ugliest' in U.S., survey

The FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., is the "ugliest" building in the country, according to a new survey.

The survey was conducted by the home improvement company Buildworld.

Buildworld scored structures across the country, including  the J. Edgar Hoover Building, by compiling tweets about the buildings’ architecture and counting how many of them were negative.

"Buildworld decided to leap into the debate by identifying the most maligned buildings in the world, judged by the language that people are using about them on Twitter," the firm says about the impetus for the survey.

The FBI headquarters was designed and built in the late ’60s and early ’70s, according to WTOP radio, which was among many local news stations Monday morning making the rating a top story. 

"The disjointed building with the drab concrete façade stands out on Pennsylvania Avenue, blocks from the White House," WTOP also reports.

The infamous Watergate apartment complex is fourth on the list. And the Scottish Parliament Building is the ugliest building in the world, according to the survey.

The federal government has acknowledged the building has at least outlived its usefulness. 

Congress, as part of the fiscal 2022 Consolidated Appropriations Act, directed the General Services Administrator to select a new site “as expeditiously as possible” from one of the three previously identified sites during project planning in 2016: Greenbelt, Md.; Landover, Md.; and Springfield, Va.

The GSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in September 2022 the site-selection process is underway for the new suburban FBI headquarters campus in the National Capital Region.