Broadgate Tower nickname competition

It's only fair it should have one. Even the London Stock Exchange is jocularly referred to as 'The Coffin' by those in the know.

My suggestion for Broadgate is:

The 'one of those things you got in the eighties, y'know, that you could bend diagonally a lot. I think you had to order them from a Frosties packet.'

Even though the above, for the first half alone, is quite obviously worthy of some sort of PR catchiness award, in the interests of fair play I should invite contributions from the audience before unleashing it on the unsuspecting London press.

See the results

New buildings blending in

Try not to look at the stop-motion picture too long, as it will make your head hurt. I misjudged how many steps to take between taking photos (I opted for 12) and the result is therefore a rather jerky progression. But hopefully it demonstrates that Broadgate Tower will be a striking landmark from all along Columbia Road where, up till now, the proximity of the City hasn't been obvious.

Columbia Road has a flower market every Sunday, and is one part of the East End which wasn't razed to the ground and rebuilt in concrete from the 40's onwards (save for one tower block which, as tower blocks go, isn't too bad.) I don't think seeing the Tower will affect the street's successful illusion of being away from the London hubbub. There's a primary school on the street - I wonder if they've been keeping some kind of Broadgate Tower diary. It's never too early to learn about the construction industry. Look at Isambard Kingdom Brunell - built his first bridge at the age of 7 (or am I confusing him with Mozart?)

Moving on now, here is my favourite building in the city. It's not too striking, but I call it my favourite building as I think it's an outstanding example of how modern architecture should be.

Taken by itself, it has an interesting angular shape, and the slats on its upper half give it an interesting texture. I've nevber actually been inside, but I imagine the big windows behind the slats let in a lot of light - not ideal for storing the Mona Lisa long term, but perfect for sitting and eating (I think it's a cafe)

The main reason, though, that I liek the building so much is that it's a perfect example of how to be in keeping with surrounding older buildings, but still being modern:


To the left is some investment firm's offices, and way down on the right is spitalfields market, a pretty old building. Without the slatted building the transition could conceivably be ugly, but with it there's a link between the modern glass and angles of the office blocks, and the brick and shopfronts of the market.

I do however worry about the square between the Willis Building and the Gherkin:

The building with the scaffold is going to make way for the Leadenhall Building, which will be about twice as tall as the Willis Building, with the vertical side to the right of the building to be demolished, and the sloping side to the left (photo). Looking at the photo, there will be tress growing in a huge atrium at the base of the tower, but I can't help thinking that it's just too big to go in what is a fairly open space surrounded by relatively small buildings in a number of interesting styles; from the church to the Lloyds Building. If the plan was to surround the whole square with buildings of that size then that would be fine, but the whole thing will look lop-sided.

I will do something about it. I need to double check, but I'm pretty sure that once planning permission has been granted and demolition has begun, then that is the best time to formally lodge objections.

Something about this makes me laugh

Stern Moderator

Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: B-lo; soon to be UES. Posts: 3,567

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Something about the design irks me.

He is, of course, talking about the Bishopsgate Tower on this forum, where New Yorkers belittle London's attempts at building skyscrapers. There's a furious spat raging:

'Your absurd arguments about London's "skyscrapers" are as entertaining as your delusion that London is as historic (if not more so) than Rome. I can't wait for the next absurd dream that you try to propagate. Is the argument that the earth really is flat next on your agenda?'

That statement prompted a multi-page response, opening with the following words:

I am not here as you assume because I envy New York, but because you can't understand other cities unless you get to know their 'communities'. I am - as you were probably unaware - actually signed up to a few other city-forums that aren't connected to London or New York. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. ;-)'

Or, just to be safe, keep them both on the internet.

The yellow planks explained

The mystery of the yellow 'planks' is solved. The mysterious yellow shelves which stick out like this have been identified by googling the contents of this photo.

The basic concept of the Xena Cantilever Crane is a simple crane that feeds DL Access platforms and relives [sic] tower cranes.

That's the first time I've usd [sic].

small cranes, made especially for high rise buildings. These cranes props in between floors, and have got telescoping boom and hoisting facilities only. The crane is controlled from a single joystick, located on the crane.

So it would seem that the main tower cranes are used for hoisting materials to the top of the tower - they can do that as they extend beyond its apex. But the Alexa cranes are used for hoisting materials to already completed floors. Not particularly exiting, but not what I expected to be the answer either.

It's not the only new way of getting materials in. At the rear is a loading bay, at the front is a new vehicle entrance, there are new steps (closely guarded by security guards I think, judging by the hut), and even a cherry-picker style machine in case all other cranes fail. It's a hive of activity!!!

I am of course yet to see anybody doing anything though as I visit at the weekend. I do, however, have some holiday to take before April so that may change.

A very very odd site about Norman Foster

Aside from his name the first items on the page are "white water rafting" (complete with the photo. She'll catch a chill dressed like that) and "Also interesting: Black-necked Grebe". Which makes me think that somebody is confusing the words Norman and Norway.

Last week I confused Norwich with Norway, so I suppose it's an easy enough mistake to make, although prolonging the misconception long enough to build a website is an outstanding feat of stupidity and endurance.

Why you shouldn't buy an Apple Mac

Bit of an obtuse title that, given the content-to-be of this post, but all will become clear towards the end.

First, here's a nice photo of the Lloyds Building from the other week:

The tree is blue too!

The Lloyds Building is a deliberate sprawl set in the midst of densely packed office blocks, and therefore impossible to photograph in its entirety. Except from above. I also have this problem with the emerging skyscrapers; as they grow bigger it becomes increasingly difficult to fit them in the frame.

Enter autostitch.

First it was developed by Matt Brown who, among other things:

• deems it necessary to include Vitamin I in his medical kit for mountaineering expeditions. I wanted to know what Vitamin I does, and answers.com just told me it's athletics slang for ibuprofen. It can also refer to vitamin B-7. Vitamin i is also "currently Ithaca's only club team". Google doesn't know enough about vitamin i yet.
• in his spare time can be found on his bike, in the mountains, or playing jazz.
• applies user specified trimaps to Llamas.

Most significantly for me though is the autostitch thingummy. Ina nutshell, you put this in:

and get this out:

And all you have to do is tell it which folder the photos are in. It's one of the most amazing pieces of software I've ever seen. Just think what it has to do: It has to work out which images overlap which others. The images could overlap to any degree, at any degree of rotation, so it then has to find where one photo's edge lies and at what angle in the photo it overlaps. It then has to warp the pictures to exactly the right degree to match up all the other photos it overlaps. And then it adjusts the colours so that the edges look OK. Good work Dr. Brown of the University of British Columbia, formerly of Cambridge!

But the demo is only available for Windows. And that is why you shouldn't buy an Apple Mac.

*edit* - It can even do this!!! The most amazing example of which is this.

Will the 'Walkie Talkie' tower be an eyesore

Is the pope responsible for the deaths of millions of Africans?!?

That's my opinion, anyway, but London Lite yesterday published comments left on a thread of this name on the This is London website, thus enabling me to read what other people think.

The appearance of the building was likened to a walkie talkie, and electric shaver and a fountain pen (!). Alienz, who made the fountain pen comparrisson, was later covered in egg by wino1, who pointed out "Alienz, think that's the Bishopsgate tower that looks like that - the 'Walkie-Talkie' is further down on website." wino1 lets himself down later by saying "And what is the obsession with the blocking of the St. Pauls view anyway - has anyone in London ever actually seen this cathedral without scaffolding on it!" Yes... but I don't think many people consider the whole scaffolding thing to be beneficial. Solomongursky1 puts him in his place with panache though.

Solomon later says: "Anyone else noticed that more seems to be happening in London now than at any time since the last major redevelopment by the luftwaffe?". Good point. Every time I see a building being built I'm drawn to comparissons with buildings being destroyed with bombs. He later adds " The views of St Pauls from the river won't be blocked. Nor from Greenwich or Parliament Hill, as far as I can see." This is true. By definition the views "as far as I can see" won't be blocked, else they wouldn't be the view.

But he does reckon without the trees, the damn trees and their impenetrable view blocking foliage. English Heritage are up in arms about them too, and are recommending the deforestation of all London's open areas. Including car parks.

I will end this round-up with some profound thoughts from the pen of lepus:

I think its ugly and out of place. The minerva tower looks like it will overpower the Tower of Londen. Having said that the no mark building thrown up to the north of Tower Bridge should never of got the go ahead and thats not a tall building.

Plans to change the old Stock Exchange Tower are welcome though. It always was ugly and the shape! I'd worked there for 4 years and walking back from the toilet one day it dawned on me it was coffin shape. Turn slight corner, turn another corner reach corner office on short edge "hang on this is a coffin!".

I thank my lucky stars that I work in a chewitt and not a coffin... although I do sit next to the toilets (next to that blonde girl Marcus always passes on the way to the toilets), so the walk to the toilets is not as revelatory for me.

A sinister turn

Last week I reported my run-in with the security services. Following this events have taken a rather more sinister turn:

"This blog has been locked by Blogger's spam-prevention robots. You will not be able to publish your posts, but you will be able to save them as drafts."

Is it a coincidence that SPAM is an acronym of Seditious Paramilitary Armed Militias? Is it? Hmmm???

Well, I will not be silenced. The world has a right to know what's really going on in the world of London skyscrapers, and not just the candy-floss that Norman Foster and his oily ilk spew forth from their Machiavellian bellows. They have a right to know NOW... or at the very least within two working days. But they (the bad 'they', as in plural of 'the man', not the good 'they' who are them that need to know) are making it very difficult for me:


That's a pretty tough picture to verify. The conspirators know no morals.

Google - when you read this to check if it's spam take note - the verification image doesn't display in firefox (it does in explorer though). Also, do you let people know if they were marked as spam automatically or via the objectionable content link at the top of blogger? If you're allowed to, please let me know via comment; I have to say that I would be absolutely chuffed to bits if there is somebody in this world who was so incensed by my mocking Placebo's lyrics that they tried to ban me. Hahaha.

Should talk a bit about scrapers. Londonist talk about scrapers a bit. Most notable is that Will Alsop is planning a tower for Old Street. The talk is of it replacing an "existing obsolete mid-rise". I wonder if this means the building where the Foundry - odd and worthy punk/art pub where Karen's friend Astrid once held her tubemap art exhibition - is? (Nope - just checked and the Foundry - though on the corner - is technically on Great Eastern Street, so it is safe).

A few years ago I saw a Channel 4 documentary by Will Alsop about the future of British urban sprawl. His vision is of more, but less dense, sprawl. He calls them supercities. The article I just linked to contains the following gem: "Barnsley could be remodelled on a Tuscan hill village"

Seems a big ask to me.

Slightly lower down he clarifies this: "transforming the South Yorkshire town of Barnsley by modelling it on a Tuscan hill village, complete with its own walls."

Yes, well spotted there. I do find conurbations have difficulty becoming sustainable without walls. Allsorts goes wrong. Lions have been known to move in. Learn from the Masai!

But it was a pretty interesting documentary for all that.

Anyway, goodnight. I'm off to build a car out of yoghurt.