From Portobello to docklands

Some people will have been reading this blog feeling distinctly miffed. I do of course refer to those who live outside the City of London, by which I mean 'the square mile' which constitutes the old city, now the financial district. Only around 9,200 people live in the City, represented on the council by the 'Chief Commoner'. The population was 208,000 in 1700, but dropped steadily until reaching a minimum of 4,234 in 1971. The population roughly halved in the second world war! Anyway, this means most people in Lonon don't live in the City, and therefore qualify for a good miffery due to my ignoring where they live.

It's true that I have focused almost exclusively on the City, being that I live pretty close to it (25mins walk) but, for a couple of completely distinct reasons, I have branched out this week.

Since last March, when I took part in Shoot Shoreditch, organised by bunch-of-wankers-with-a-really-good-idea Shoot Experience (so good they're now doing overseas franchises), I have been on their mailing list, which lets me know of upcoming photographic treasurehunts. There was a free one in Portobello this weekend, and as Laura lives near there I thought we could do it... and we did. The photo at the top of this post (Island Records graffiti) is my favourite out of the entries we submitted, but the one relevant to the london skyline theme of this blog is Trellick Tower (right).

It's 98m tall, so is just below the arbitrary threshold I set for inclusion in the blog, but what the hell - it's distinctive enough to make the grade I think. Skyscrapernews, ever a source of interesting facts, reveals that 'the walkways between the service shaft and main tower every two floors are based on the dimensions of train carriages to make the users of them feel more comfortable and familiar with their surroundings.' Brilliant rationale, and thoroughly needed as I doubt many people in the seventies would have had much experience of walking down corridors by themselves, what with schools, hospitals and office buildings of any type not having being invented yet. And being in a train hundreds of feet up in the air would have been a completely normal, everyday sort of experience.

As illustrated by the strategic placement of a 'woof!' in the photo, a possible further inspiration could be a dog. In particular, Odie from Garfield. The resemblance, I think you'll agree, is really quite striking.

Also, I was about to suggest that the tower's architect Erno Goldfinger (a friend of Ian Fleming's, and the inspiration for the Bond villain) may have stood in the Docklands area all those years ago, peering out to the South West, and seen the buildings to the left, and thought they'd look good rolled into one. But, as it turns out, Guy's hospital (the one on the right) at least, was built after Trellick Tower.

It wasn't a good theory anyway.

The second reason for the diversification of the geographical areas covered by the blog is that I have now bought a bike-lock, so when cycling down to Docklands I can leave the bike and wander around on foot to examine how construction is progressing.

More on that later.

Elsewhere in the tall-buildings-averse

I redesigned the blog a few months ago, partly to give it a london skyline theme, and partly to make it wide enough for standard size 500px Flickr photos (it does annoy me that you can't select a different default size to suit your blog, or wherever else you post them). I may have to widen the content area again though, and ignore the plight of people using small screens, as below is a video which comes in at a whopping 700px wide!




It's the latest Channel 4 ident, featuring an adulterated view of the rapidly growing Dubai skyline. If you're into idents then, idents being your thing, you would probably like to visit the blog/podcast I got it from: http://idents.tv/blog/. Why you would be into idents, beyond just going "hmm - that's clever" when they come up on your TV screen, is a mystery to me, but the blog claims to have 218 subscribers so there's evidently quite a large niche.

Apart from more buildings than there actually are being made up in Dubai in order for a '4' to spontaneously form, other interesting bits and bobs in the skyscraper world are (just one bit and one bob as it turns out) the imminent construction of a 146m tall tower in Birmingham called the V Building (pictured) and a new tower planned in China.

Birmingham is much-maligned for its architecture, but... actually - I don't really have anything to say about the new tower, other than that it looks pretty good. And that the architect says:

'However, if The V Building was in Chicago or New York, it would be just another tower to be appreciated up close, crowded by the many other skyscrapers when viewed as part of the skyline.'

I bet he'd love it if his tower was going up in New York or Chicago instead.

The left over 'bob' is a tower I just recently read about on skyscrapernews being built in Tianjin in China, which is a pretty special design. Distinctive, futuristic and elegant. I'm not sure if it'd fit in on the london skyline - whilst very modern buildings among classic style ones can be very striking, not every modern building will look good in such a setting. But anyway, it looks like the Chinese might be coming on a bit since the folly of the Shanghai bubble-boy masts. Here's a picture (click for article).

And one final trivial thing is an online jigsaw of St Pauls, Tower 42 and Waterloo Bridge.

Rocked and rolled

I wrote a few days ago how the Lewis Media Centre at Millbank Tower were to play host to this year's battle of the bands. I included in the post this picture , ironically mocking the Centre's severely un-rocking image (unless you count a 3m tall portrait of Jeremy Paxman as rocking... which I suppose some people might. If I'm honest I'm one of those people. I call him Jeremy "The Axeman" Paxman. That's probably also what his wife calls him in bed, and I'm not sure I want to follow this train of thought any further... or do I?...)

Turns out I underestimated the event. Not only was godfather of filth Gareth Gates present, but he also made the aforementioned hand gesture.

"Some people [me?] doubted the event would succeed – from the complexities of the itinerary to ensuring all those rockers (and journalists) could be in one room at the same time without all hell breaking loose."

The battle was a journalists only contest, which brings to mind Father Ted's all priests look-alike competition (youtube video). If I was in a band of journalists we would be called 'on the record'. One of the entries went by the moniker 'the spin band', so I'm glad to see somebody followed the journalistic theme. They didn't win though. There was tough competition... from Soulscream, no less.

Foreigners and Fenchurch street

I walked part the way home along the South Bank this evening being that it was such a nice day out.

Came across one of those human statues who had put his normal clothes back on, but still had the tell-tale silver face.

He spoke French. This surprised me. I suppose, now I think about it, it's a natural job for somebody who's moved to this country and maybe doesn't have great English. Beats digging up potatoes in Norfolk I suppose.

Apart from the fact that these human statues also seem to be popping up all over London there's not much to link that with skyscrapers, so I'll just jump...

... like this, and pretend I've been talking about buildings all along.

So, as I was saying, here are the two most pertinent points from English Heritage's case in the Walkie Talkie inquiry.

"This would become London’s ugliest and most oppressive building. Londoners have not even been asked whether they want this building in their city. "

"...larger, more monolithic and more prominent than St Paul’s Cathedral"

Not much to say about them, other than that they're spot on. Forget the foolish diagrams and appeals to world heritage status - this is the real crux of the argument.

For comedy value, here's a few choice bloopers from English Heritage's arguments (distilled from skyscrapernews' very useful news page).

[On English Heritage's proposed planning restrictions diagram] Conveniently for English Heritage this takes 20 Fenchurch Street out if it were to be adopted by the planning authorities. ... won't just take in 20 Fenchurch Street but also tall buildings on the South Bank ... counting up the gross development value ... opposing over £5 billion pounds worth of new development in London and thousands of new and much needed homes.

... the electricity requirement of keeping it cool which would be ... 57,534 [kWh] per day ... Whilst this might sound like a lot, it compares favourably to other commercial premises ... What makes the attack particularly unusual is that English Heritage have latched on to this figure, scarily huge but totally meaningless without a comparison presented.

.. attack by English Heritage lawyer ... on the lack of affordable housing within the scheme. Given it's an office building centred in the most singularly office district of London ... it's hardly surprising this aspect was neglected by the developer

Well, they made me laugh. Not out loud though.

Finally:

The planned tower is in the unique position of being called in by the Secretary of State, Ruth Kelly, for a public inquiry despite no-one having referred it. Adding to this unusual situation, is the decision by Kelly herself to fast-track the inquiry, a move that some fear has been taken so she can decide the fate of the building herself before she loses her job in the expected cabinet reshuffle this coming July.

Kelly is no fan of tall buildings or joined up thinking having previously overridden the findings of a public inquiry on Brunswick Quay as well as having campaigned in her capacity as a local MP against policies she has introduced as a minister.

Which makes me more hopeful than I was that the tower wil be rejected.

Let's put the Broadgate Tower on the map

I'm going to try a bit of observational comedy now:

Have you ever noticed how, y'know, when they have those pictures - artist's impressions, y'know - of the difference between today's London skyline and tomorrow's, they always leave out the Boadgate Tower. (pauses for audience to chuckle in recognition). And Turkish delight - what's that all about??

Poor comedy aside (I say poor, but stuff of that caliber was good enough to get The Cowards their own Radio 4 show. I'm not going to link to a page about them as it will only increase their ill deserved fame.), it's true:



I know the Broadgate Tower is set back somewhat from the river, but you can already see it (I was only there outside the Tate last week) and it's only 2/3 its final height.

It's not as easy as fixing the New London Architecture Willis Building omission debacle as these images are generated willy-nilly by artists the length and breadth of England. But where there's a will there's a way (that's not to say I have a will).

Now, back to the comedy:

I saw this guy the other day... just walking!

If still in doubt, draw another diagram

Yesterday's foray into diagrams and their use in guiding London planning policy (Re Walkie Talkie in particular) has inspired some further research into the area.

If you've been following Adam Curtis' so-so new documentary series castigating the UK and American governments for turning everything into targets and management speak, you may not be surprised to hear that there are such entities as "Strategic Viewing Corridors" and the "London View Management Framework." With diagrams to accompany them.

These are the strategic viewing corridors. All roads lead to Rome, but all strategic viewing corridors lead to St Paul's cathedral (well, nearly all. A handful lead to westminster and Buckingham Palace). There are 26 in all listed in the framework document. I also found a consultation document. Interesting snippets in it include:

New views in river prospects and townscape views were welcomed by heritage bodies in particular. The creation of new views does however create extra work for some of the central London boroughs.

You'll be glad to know that the London Boroughs don't have to build the new views from scratch; they just have to regulate existing ones.

Geometric definition for some views was opposed by some developers who prefer a system of qualitative visual assessment.

I bet they do.

To give an example (detailed in full in this document, which is but one from a selection looking at all the viewing corridors in equal detail), the strategic viewing corridor from Alexandra palace impacts on planning in 4 London Boroughs - including 1 which lies on the other side of the river (As it forms the backdrop). The document contains this unlikely sentence:

The view of St Paul’s Cathedral from the car park will be managed through geometric definition.

The picture above illustrates exactly what is to be preserved. If you ask me, they should have left out the real photo as it looks naff. Pink and yellow planes streaking out across London however - I'm convinced! They also have a table with lots of angles noted down in it - very proper.

Anyway, I plan to visit every single one of the viewpoints to compare the managed views and maybe pick a winner.

On to the second map. In the blue area you're not allowed to build anything more than 57 metres tall as it will interfere with the view of St Paul's (a similar area is in place for the monument). You could get by these planning regulations by building a 57m tall wall in the middle of the Thames, but I doubt that will happen. Although, who knows - maybe I've just planted a seed in the mind of some Montgomery Burns tycoon developer. Hope not.

What started yesterday as a quick round up of the Walkie Talkie trial has become a farce. I now have 30 tabs open in firefox with no end in site.

If in doubt, draw a diagram

Last post for the day now - I'm meeting Tom in a bit to watch the footie.

In mathematics it's generally considered to be useful practice to draw a diagram to guide you towards a formal proof (Matt is doing some research on whether this is all the diagram can be based on this book - quite interesting, or so I'm told).

I don't know if English Heritage is dominated by frustrated mathematicians, but they have also come up with an instructive diagrammatical representation of the London Skyline, which they hope will lend weight to their argument that building the Walkie Talkie tower at 20 Fenchurch Street just isn't on.

Look at these two photos:

View from Waterloo Bridge

View From Waterloo Bridge With Consented buildings and 20 Fenchurch St

First picture good, second picture bad. Convinced?

Not likely.

But now look at this:

English heritage believes that structures between the cluster of tall buildings proposed for the Aldgate area and the furthest visible point of the river should remain below a visual arc drawn between the two.

A masterstroke! See how the waterflow in the river interacts with the treeline and the top of the river wall to create harmony. It's enough to make you think about actually drawing in the arrows permanently on the river, and tying a cable from the top of Bishopsgate tower to the river, which would also, through incorporation of a deathslide, make leaving work quicker and easier for those working near the top of the tower.

But, much as I like diagrams as a way of cutting out the clutter and lending some precision to the argument... the Walkie Talkie actually fits in well in this shot. It only looks out of place when you see a natural colours photo. It's not ugly because it fails to fit a geometrical form that aesthetically pleasing cityscapes must satisfy (consider Toronto's jerky profile). The Walkie Talkie is just plain ugly and ill-fitting for a whole host of reasons.

And also, isn't jsut wonderful how, coincidentally, the Bishopsgate Tower lies exactly on the ark which sorts the good towers from the bad. Surely English Heritage can see that, with such an arbitrary starting point, it's possible to make the reverses argument starting with the Walkie Talkie being in the arc, and therefore giving free reign to build really tall buildings where the Bishopsgate Tower is. Was that well explained?

And, in case you're wondering - 3-0 to England's my prediction.

Architects know best

I was going to start this post with a jokey 'photo of the Elephant and CAstle shoping centre accompanied by a "See!"', but this is far funnier:

'It's always been a fun item, and references to the area name (taken from an olde pub) just adds to its cuteness. It even spent some years painted in a sickly pink, a huge homage to the in-joke.'

I think Charles is serious, judging by the rest of his website. Will have to return and read more some day as it looks to be thoroughly well put together. It has a piece on how Euston used to look before it looked, well, hideous.

Anyway, back to the theme - architects know best. I'm just going to compile a selection of opinions voiced by architects and architectural bodies regarding the Walkie Talkie. Then we can have some sort of head count by way of a face-off.

• The property giant won support to go ahead with plans for the 39-storey tower from a range of modernist architects, reported to include Lord Norman Foster & Lord Richard Rogers.
• Frank Gehry [responsible for the amazing looking building to the right] added his endorsement, telling the inquiry in a written letter that the building would represent a “great addition to the London skyline,” The Financial Times reported.
• Former Riba president George Ferguson has criticised Rafael Vinoly’s designs for the ‘Walkie Talkie’ tower at 20 Fenchurch Street. Ferguson said “You can justify these buildings in London if they are exceptionally good, but this is a child’s concept,”
• CABE, the government’s design watchdog, which said the tower could offer an “extraordinary public space” and “unrivalled views.”

So that's about 5-1 to the pro Walkie Talkie people... but I think man of the match must go to George Ferguson - scathing!

I do agree with him though. When I was little, me and my brother used to draw futuristic moon space stations which, come to think of it, looked just like today's Shanghai skyline. The Walkie Talkie would have fitted in perfectly, and that is not a good thing: We also drew huge man-eating monsters. Build the walkie talkie and we are but a childish step away from Godzilla style mayhem.

I've just remembered a dream I had last night. I was looking at a fort which I was sure was the Kremlin. In the middle of the fort was a big Germanic looking house stood atop a slender tower. It looked pretty cool, unlike some other top heavy buildings.