Oxford's architecture has been described as “hideous” and part of a “sad decline” in a new article by The Spectator.

The publication was founded in July 1928 and is the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world, focusing on politics, culture, and current affairs.

One of the latest articles featured on The Spectator’s website is written by Alexander Larman and is entitled ‘The sad decline of Oxford’.

Published on Saturday, May 25, the piece launches a scathing attack on large sections of the city’s architecture.

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Oxford Mail: The Cheng Yu Tung building in Oxford city centre.The Cheng Yu Tung building in Oxford city centre.

Mr Larman, who lives in the city, argues Oxford’s cityscape is being wrecked by new buildings.

“Why is so much of Oxford being not merely neglected, but positively ruined?”, he said.

“[The] north Oxford mansions are eyesores so unpalatable, so wrong that it is hard to believe that any architect had designed them.”

The author goes on to highlight several standout buildings in the city centre which he has taken exception to.

“The most recent and high-profile offender, the grotesque Cheng Yu Tung building on Cornmarket Street, commissioned by Jesus College,” added Larman.

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“This particular thoroughfare has always suffered from neglect, but now it’s little more than a sad mishmash of unlicensed Harry Potter merchandise shops, indifferent fast-food outlets and now this unsightly behemoth.

“It is no surprise that, on its first floor, it hosts the ironically named Cosy Club, a bar-restaurant with faux-Victorian décor that looks like a morphine-induced fever dream."

Other key spots in the city centre are also ridiculed by Mr Larman who continues to point out the architectural disparities.

He takes aim at the city's train station which is described as a "horrible 1990 construction" and the Westgate Centre which has "little or no sympathy with the architectural heritage of the city".

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Oxford Mail: The railway station was mentioned in the article.The railway station was mentioned in the article.

The author does concede that some areas of the city remain brilliant but concludes that Oxford’s architectural future is bleak.

He highlights the High Street, Broad Street and Turl Street as three area of the city which remain "unspoilt and glorious".

The writer continued: “But there are plenty of other places to provoke us to anger.

“The difficulty in Oxford is that its architecture has been subsumed to the worst kind of instincts: penny-pinching councillors on the one hand, who wouldn’t know beauty if it leapt up and bit them, and out-of-touch dons and administrators on the other, easily bamboozled by some flashy impresario’s latest display of emperor’s new clothes-esque ostentation.

“The result is aesthetic impoverishment for both its residents and visitors alike.”

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