Run, run, run to the Centre Broadgate

British Land - the developers of The Broadgate Tower - have suddenly gone upmarket, replacing the dingy little British Land signs with larger, glossier signs more befitting the venue.

They've also opened a marketing suite. This strikes me as a tad late as the Tower is now almost (if not completely) fully pre-leased. I suppose there may still be a lot of space to let in 201 Bishopsgate.

What do they do in the marketing suite? Do they have an endless stream of top city executives popping by to chew the letting cud; unlikely I think. I may pop round during the week sometime. Finish work a bit early, slip my trusty suit on, and start talking in figures. I wonder if you can go on a site tour yet? Not sure how much use it would be to a potential tenant as it's probably still quite messy and dusty, but I'd damn well like to see inside the place!

This would probably be a good place to demonstrate how far away 201 Bishopsgate is from having photos of it included in a glossy brochure. Work on the facade has actually slowed, with only half a floor glazed in the last month (although large swathes round the back of the building are looking a lot more shipshape these days).

A scaffold is for life, not just for construction

I was scathing in my views the other day of the eventual surface the Broadgate Tower is to have; all silky smooth transparent pale glass. I think it would look much nicer were it to be surrounded by something a bit like the cluttered cross-strutting of the cranes and lift tracks.

Bear with me.

Since Richard Rogers built the Centre Pompidou and the Lloyds Building it is no longer shameful to unabashedly include the utilitarian parts of a building as an integral part of its aesthetic design. It's not too big a flight of fancy to suppose that leaving bits of structure resembling cranes etc. when the building is complete could have similar aesthetic appeal.

Well, I think the mixture of clutter and regularity is pleasing to the eye anyway. Almost like a Jackson Pollock.

There is a recent precedent to a London City Building having a wireframe type structure around its exterior, namely 1Plantation Place (pictured. The building to the right is the "will they/won't they replace it with an oversized communication device 20 Fenchurch Street). The outer layer of glass - set a good metre or 2 out of reach of the inner one - is designed to stop rain getting in through the inner windows, which open to allow air to circulate. The end result is something that looks a bit like pinhead from hellraiser... but I like it. There's a recent upstart to the mechano/lego throne called k'nex, and it looks almost as if it's built out of the stuff, which is a good thing.

As demonstrated in this photo (click for much bigger) 1 Plantation place does tower above most of its riverside neighbours. It also only finished construction in 2004, but went unnoticed by me, even though in 2004 I did walk regularly home from work along the More London side of the river.

The point being, I should be a bit more liberal about my 100m minimum for buildings covered in this blog. I see plenty of cranes around and I really should show a lot more verve in investigating them.

I don't see enough dead people

I mentioned before that I ended up at the Tower of London on Sunday. To get there from the City you pretty much have to go via Tower Hill, where I popped into Trinity gardens, where there are 2 memorials.

The first is for sailors in the merchant navy killed in the second world war. This is because Trinity gardens are overlooked by the Port of London Authority building (which I will write about some other time as it's an impressive edifice). This memorial is fairly big, and purports to list the names of every seaman lost in the Battle of the Atlantic.

The second memorial (pictured below) is a more subdued affair. A small square of Land holds about 6 plaques with the names of a few of the people who were beheaded or hanged at Tower Hill. As the plaque says, many of the 125 executed died a martyr's death, but curiously it only names some of the people.

Now, given that thousands of dead sailors are listed nearby, would it have killed the authorities to give a comprehensive list of the 125 martyrs of Tower Hill? Would it? I don't begrudge the merchant navy their full inventory (my godfather was in the merchant navy during he war, and he died*.), but I think we should end the iniquity here!


*long after retiring admittedly, but I'm sure he'd still back me 100%. He was a very down to earth man, with no airs and graces. The sort of person who never threw a piece of wood away.

Two-things-only-safe

Combisafe - who provide safety netting for Broadgate Tower - are proud to announce that they have just exhibited at 'The most successful Bauma of all time.'

Good for them.

It is a silly name for a construction industry event - sounding more like an innuit coming of age ceremony, or the name of a crime-fighter in a hurry - , but as you can see from the photo the event is full of big machines, and is basically a schoolboy's dream. So I shan't mock something which I damn well wish I could go to.

Combisafe have the following to say about their range of netting and fences:

Our edge protection systems don't comply with safety standards.

What?!?

They set them.

Aaaah. Clever.

And reassuring too.

Their site safety solutions include some that are 'based around a square concept', and others which incorporate 'a "zero" factor fall arrest system.' Perplexing though these product descriptions are, the most bizarre thing about the company is why they call themselves Combisafe? It's surely a bit self-aggrandizing to suppose that using two different kinds of thing - namely nets and fences - is justification enough to use the prefix 'combi'. A greengrocer - with his myriad varieties of fruit and veg - could perhaps justify calling his stall 'Combiveg', but I think if you only peddle 2 kinds of wares you're over-egging the point a bit. Here's what the world would be like if the practice was widespread:

• Bikes would be known as combiwheels. (Bike thieves would still however be known as 'bike-thieving bastards' as the alliteration really helps exorcise those bilious feelings).
• Trousers would be known as combitubes
• Twins would be called combipeople
• Newton's third law would be renamed 'Newton's law of combi-ness'

I'm sure you get the idea by now?

Ok, one more then. But only because I'm quite enjoying this.

• Fences would be known as combisides

Keywords of the week

I have a few favourites this week. I also took the afternoon off work due to a banging headache and am now so bored that I will write about anything.

funny looking cone shaped glass building in london

Damn! I thought I covered all the angles. If this was you, you're probably looking for information about The Gherkin.

gareth gates spotted in london pub

Someone wanted to find information about this. Fair enough, ogle the photos if you come across them in the Sun/Heat... but can there be any justification at all for searching the web for more??? Is that you, Jordan?

rubik's tower

It begins!

wrexham in the 1800's

A sad one to finish. Wrexham was quite a dashing town back in the day, and as recently as 2002 it was highly commended in a best high street in Britain contest, partly due to the well-preserved period architecture (it matters not that the street called High Street no longer really functions as the high street since the town centre has moved West towards Hope Street).

It's sad because although there are lots of books full of period photos, my coming near the top in a google search would indicate that very little of this archive material is online.

If only they'd had blogs back then!

Cutty Sark/bike parallels

When I was travelling in Australia I bought a battered country and western guitar in Tamworth, home of Australian C&W music. That guitar travelled with me everywhere I went after that, all through the outback and down the East Coast, and it was covered with stickers to reflect that. It was also my only company when I injured my leg in Melbourne and was housebound for a month. I loved that guitar, and called it Fred.

British Airways, the clumsy bastards (bring on the litigation), broke it on my journey back. When I opened the box at the airport to find the neck snapped my mum - bless - tried to empathise by saying she knew how I felt because there was a cardigan she bought from a mail order company a week or so earlier and she'd just snagged it.

It is with similar flawless logic that I say 'Greenwich - I know what you're going through with that whole Cutty Sark burning down thing as I've just had my bike nicked.' I also have no qualms about claiming that the fact that the fire was suspicious points to involvement by the little tykes that stole my bike. The tyres were, in fact, probably used as an accelerant in their destructive bike/boat arson spree.

My attitude to the bike reminds me of a Stephen Fry sketch.

Stephen, a politician (fittingly, he recently sat down for a chat with Mr. Blair), is stood behind a podium:

It is with a heavy heart that I stand here today to announce that someone has stolen my car. As a result I and my government have decided to tighten the law to prevent people from stealing my car. It is hoped that with the new measures we are bringing in I will no longer have a problem with people stealing my car.

I must, however, stress that this policy has a sound moral basis, which is stopping people from stealing my car. Some people would argue that people stealing their cars is also wrong and should be taken into account, but I feel that that detracts from the main moral concern, which is to stop people STEALING MY CAR...

And it goes on, rising to a crescendo. Haha.

By all this I really mean to say that it's sad the Cutty Sark has gone, but when the story is covered by the BBC I don't think there's really much I can add.

PS - Fred is now fixed. Apparently a large proportion of the Cutty Sark's timbers were off site for restoration, so there's hope for the boat too.

The white tower

As you can probably already tell from your aching cheeks and sides, and from having co-workers give you uncomfortable stares which can only mean 'Why are you laughing?', I have turned my hand to what is popularly known as comic photography, but for which I have coined the term wittography (derived from the roots 'wit' and 'graph' in the original English and Greek, which literally mean 'funny picture').

The Broadgate Tower, as I have pointed out before, dwarfs all the buildings around it. In fact, you could say it's upstairs of everything.

But as I also pointed out the gradual increase in height is only half the story. The glaziers started work months ago, and are still going strong. Since mid April they have covered over another half-diamond with glass (the half-diamond being the standard unit of measurement for the Broadgate Tower).

I'm afraid I'm going to have to be critical of the glazing though. Not just the glazing, but the cladding on the structural elements. As the glass is just clear glass, and the cladding on the beams is virtually white the end result is going to be a very pale tower (unless they fill it with very dark things - millions of undertakers' offices - in which case the effect will be like a negative of a tudor building). Pale glazed tall buildings are relatively rare; the only one I can think of is HSBC Tower in Docklands, but that is in very glitzy metallic surroundings. I'm not sure how well a squeaky clean Broadgate Tower will harmonize with grimy Shoreditch. Even if, as London Lite claims, Shoreditch is virtually the West End now, the area will continue to look grubby unless the buildings are knocked down. Or sand-blasted, like St. Paul's. And that ain't gonna happen. Unless I launch a campaign. I'll make spurious claims that unsandblasted buildings are carcinogenic. People will believe me. I'm well-trusted about town.

Also, the fire escape is being put together at an impressive rate. But for some reason the sticky back plastic at the bottom is yet to be removed. A minor criticism, but my Mum always told me to clear up one mess before starting to make another, and ignoring that advice has left me in the many messes (mostly bedroom floor based) I find myself in today.

Transport problems

Well, what a great day! I woke up fairly early and, on looking out of the window to see the bright blue sky, decided to pack a large bottle of water and a salami salad sandwich, and then head off on the bike; first to the City, then to Docklands, then maybe back along the south side of the Thames.

Except that's not what really happened because last night some little fucker nicked my bike. Which means I have to take public transport for a while. The omen's are good though; I've just seen a bus on fire, and earlier in the day I passed two friendly bus drivers arguing about whose fault it was they nearly crashed. On the bright side Ken Livingstone has -finally - got around to passing legislation which exempts bendy buses from the standard 'no-bending' traffic bylaws in the capital, so bus journeys should be quicker now.

Without the bike I feel .
I just feel like I suddenly have a huge burden to bear .
It's just a shame the world's such a .

But as my mate Rimmsy would say: "Hey ho." And how about listening to this cheery summer song by Karl Blau.

As you can tell from the photos I did get out and about despite the de-wheeling. Quite an epic journey, all the way to the river. Your reward for reading through my sob story is to play a great new game I invented at the Tower of London called 'Achilles Heel'. The way it works is: I show you a picture of a building (most likely a castle or a disused fort), and you have to work out where the achilles heel of the fortifications is. (I am preoccupied with chinks in armour at the moment given that my bike lock was evidently not as impervious as advertised.)

A tricky one to start:

Can you tell what it is yet?