Last issue we were asking you to submit pictures of Europe's most ugly places. We got some great submissions over the last couple of months and we are happy to present them to you. Be excited about having a look at some of Europe's most ugly corners. And they are in places where you wouldn't have expected them...

"The jury decided to award the "Most ugly" prize to Mathew Shearman.

Mr Shearman submitted a picture of the picturesque Four Star Waterfront Hotel in Ghent, Belgium.

The "expert" judgment: "It was a tough decision. We decided to award the picture to "Twenty-one windows blend on cement in Ghent". Shearman's choice of a hotel as motive, a symbol of the bourgeoisie, convinced us.

The "riverside" hotel exemplifies his critique of modern society. Once under the illusion of the Promised Land ("four star"), the individual in the artist’s work now feels trapped and locked in his cell ("room"). The motive’s suicide-friendly windows overlooking the river are particularly characteristic of this final stage of decay.

We were also particularly impressed by the picture's aesthetic value: the subtle grey-in-grey contrasts well emphasise the artist's postmodern approach. To capture the warm iridescence of the surface, he apparently shot twelve times from different angles. Finally, his use of the "somehow-sideways" perspective displays a high degree of artistic maturity."

In the light of these qualities, E&M deliberated whether to award the artist a charming stay in a "riverside" room of this marvellous four star hotel, including an inmate ("partner") of his choice. Short of the money to do so, however, E&M decided to award him a E&M t-shirt instead.

Congratulations to Mr Shearman and everyone else who participated!

The runner-ups:

Market of San Remo, Italy

Oxford Union

Bronte, Sicily

Mathematical Bridge, Cambridge