The practice responsible for Westminster council’s disastrous Marble Arch Mound attraction has said it should have walked away from the project when the authority lost interest and it was excluded from construction-phase talks.

Rotterdam-based architect MVRDV said the project, which went through numerous design changes and became a laughing stock when it opened before it was finished last summer, should have been a celebration of London but became a “loveless installation”.

Conservative-run Westminster’s deputy leader Mervyn Caplan resigned from his position over the mound debacle in August last year. Last month, it emerged that the official who oversaw much of the project – former Mecanoo director Elad Eisenstein – was on a salary of £220,000. The figure is almost £3,000 a year more than the authority’s chief executive.

…