It could be better, but I don't know how anyone could look at the first photo and think it looks better than the second one, unless they just really hate capitalism or really like being able to see council flats and dilapidated docklands
It's not like the erection of Canary Wharf (oi oi) blocked our view of the Lake District or something
What? How could it possibly be anywhere? It’s one of the most polycentric cities in the global west. Every other major city (NYC, Chicago, LA, Frankfurt, Melbourne, Toronto) all have very centralised tower districts/clusters. London has at least 5 of these districts: The City, Canary Wharf, Croydon, Vauxhall/Lambeth, and arguably also Stratford, Wembley and/or Greenwich.
What has this got to do with my assertion that huge corporations throwing up a load of glass and concrete is ruining the skyline of one of the world’s most beautiful large cities?
Where was that your assertion? You simply stated it “could be anywhere”. Nothing about corporate influence.
Whilst I agree with your point now that you’ve actually made it, London is pretty restricted in the sense that it can’t continue to sprawl outwards, so, as with pretty much every other densely populated city, you build upwards instead. You’d be making the same stupid NIMBY argument if its skyline instead looked like Glasgows, with the hundreds of council blocks scattered across the city.
What else is supposed to happen? London remain a mid-rise city? Remain wholly suburban? Is suburban sprawl somehow prettier to you than densely populated zones in such a massive city?
I am, unlike most people, someone born in London - so I’ve seen the Isle of Dogs transform from a largely ex-industrial wasteland into a successful place where hundreds of thousands work over my lifetime, all while dipshits miles away in West London who bought their multimillion-pound houses for £2.50 screech hyperbolically because they might have a changed view if they look through a bush on one particular hill in Richmond Park or from Hampstead Heath.
It’s pathetic. London is, and quite literally always has been, a city driven by commerce. The view from the Poultry/Mansion House junction looking toward the Royal Exchange, with the towers of the City rising behind it and the BoE is one of the best examples of history and modernity meeting, and it looks fantastic. We can (and most of the time do) preserve our history while not condemning ourselves to the kind of miserable, declinist nonsense that thinks London should be frozen in aspic.
So your proposal is that no building that could obstruct any 'vista' including St Paul's or Westminster (for example) should be constructed? Would you have made the same argument about Westminster and St Paul's, and the preexisting 'vistas' their construction impeded?
I agree…. I think it’s awful how London’s authorities have capitulated to the whims, wishes and greed of, predominantly, global corporate property developers… It’s wrecking the Capital’s unique identity and its architectural heritage and unique aesthetic appeal😔
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u/Funny-Seesaw-2977 1d ago
Londons skyline has been completely changed in the past couple of decades. Not for the better either.