The 160-metre tower, officially named 20 Fenchurch Street, was announced as the winner of this year’s Carbuncle Cup award by organisers Building Design (BD) magazine.

Architecture critic Ike Ijeh called the Walkie Talkie “a gratuitous glass gargoyle graffitied onto the skyline of London,” while architectural designer Eleanor Jolliffe described it as a “Bond villain tower, as it could melt your car with a solar beam from space”.

Completed earlier this year, the project received multiple nominations and was included on a shortlist of six, unveiled on 28 August.

The list also included the Woodward Hall development in North Acton, the “pastiche” Whittle building at the University of Cambridge, the Waltham Forest YMCA building, Southampton’s City Gateway project and the Parliament House tower in Lambeth.

Designed by Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly, the controversial Walkie Talkie gained its nickname for its distinctive shape, created by larger floor plates on the upper levels compared to those closer to the ground. Its top levels are taken up by the public Sky Garden, which helped the project win planning permission.

While still under construction, its concave glass facade concentrated a beam of sunlight onto nearby cars, melting parts of the bodywork and earning it the nickname Walkie Scorchie.

It hit the headlines again earlier this year after reports claimed that its curved facade is channelling gusts of wind strong enough to knock people over.