This section is about London's skyline. And the skyline can best be seen from the famous river Thames. The whole city center, Soho and the famous parks, most famous buildings and monuments plus the Canary Wharf cluster are on the north/west side of the Thames. There are many highrises in Greater London, but most of them are just around 20 floors high. The largest clusters of real skyscrapers though, are City of London (the east part of the city center) and Canary Wharf in Docklands. The rest are spread out all over the city, but there is also a cluster south of Thames from central London. But since last I visited London (in 1999), the number of tall buildings have heavily increased. After decades of conservative architecture where numbers of tall buildings have been cancelled, London is now preparing for the future. In City, the new innovative 30 St Mary Axe has just been completed and in Canary Wharf, 7 new skyscrapers around 200m tall now makes Great Britain's tallest building One Canada Square company. And just south of Thames, The London Eye, Europe's tallest ferris wheel has just arisen 135m above the river. And many new skyscrapers are planned in the whole city. The most remarkable one is the London Bridge Tower, that will be Europe´s tallest building outside Russia if built. At 310m and 66 floors it will stand on the south side of Thames near Guys Hospital (at the site of Southwark Towers, that will be demolished), so it can be seen from the city center and the rest of London. Some churches and monuments also help London giving the city an almost impressive skyline, at least from some angles.

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City of London skyline as seen from Waterloo Bridge above Thames. From the left: Shakespeare Tower, Lauderdale Tower, Cromwell Tower, CityPoint, St Paul's Cathedral, Tower 42 (NatWest Tower), 30 St Mary Axe (Swiss Re) (central London's tallest and 2nd buildings) and Kings Reach Tower (just east of Thames).

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A closer look towards St Paul's Cathedral (111m) from 1710, Tower 42 (183m, 43 floors) from 1980 and Swiss Re(180m, 41 floors) from 2003.

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Canary Wharf skyline. Canary Wharf is the cluster of the developed harbour Docklands, that used to be slum. One Canada Square alias Canary Wharf Tower is not only dominating the skyline with its silver facade and pyramid top, it is also Great Britain's tallest building and one of Europe's tallest (235m, 50 floors). This picture is taken from Greenwich. From the left: 40 Bank Street, 25 Bank Street, One Canada Square(Canary Wharf Tower), 25 Canada Square(Citygroup Centre), 8 Canada Square(HSBC Center) - (these 2 are 200m each and are London's 2nd and 3rd tallest buildings), 10 Upper Bank Street (front), 5 Canada Square (Bank of America) and One Churchill Place (Barclays Bank).

I didn't go to Canary Wharf when I was in London in 1999, I just saw it from a distance. One Canada Square stood there alone then. It had been alone since 1991. But as late as in 2003 the other buildings were completed.

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Canary Wharf from a bus station south of Thames near Greenwich.



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Panorama from a hill in the park Hamsted Heth in the northern suburb of Hamsted. Here you can see both the Canary Wharf cluster dominated by One Canada Square, HSB and Citygroup and the City of London cluster dominated by Tower 42 and Swiss Re.

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Houses of the Parliament makes its own skyline from Thames with the towering Clock Tower "Big Ben", Central Tower and Victoria Tower.


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City of London as as as seen from the famous Tower Bridge. The Tower of London has now got company from modern buildings such as Swiss Re, St Helen's and Tower 42.


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From the opposite side (south) of Thames from The Tower of London. The futuritic glass building is the new 10-story City Hall by Norman Foster, completed as late as in 2002. The tall building in the background is Guys Hospital, the world's tallest hospital.

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The new City Hall with the huge robot sculpture "Weeman" made of trash and Guys Hospital to the left.

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Skyline from the southern edge of Tower Bridge. The south and north side of Thames seem almost "melting together" creating a large Americanised skyline.

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Canary Wharf/Docklands skyline with One Canada Square and its cousins from the Tower Bridge. In the center is a brandnew apartment complex with green windows, part of the Vauxhall district.

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Canary Wharf as seen from the lightrail on its way to...Canary Wharf.

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City of London´s skyline with Canary Wharf's skyline in the background.

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Kings Reach Tower, now 111m, will have a new design for its facaded and have 4 floors added.

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The London Eye, Millibank and Houses of Parliament.

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London Bridge, a large ship, Millibank and BT Tower as seen from Tower Bridge.


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City of London skyline as seen from the Thames after dark.

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Looking to the west from Westminster Bridge. Millibank Tower (119m, 32 floors) from 1963 is dominating the skyline. And a new residence building in Vauxhall and an unknown building u/c.

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Millennium Dome as seen from Greenwich.


Views from Chelsea Bridge that connects Chelsea with Battersea Park south of the Thames:

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Battersea Power Station, the famous marble factory from 1955 that was the front cover of Pink Floyd's 1977 album Animals and a nice brandnew apartment complex that reminded me a bit of Dubai with its courtyard pounds. The intersting thing is that I was thinking that the power station reminded me of the cover of this album, but I didn't know it actually was.

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Chelsea Bridge´s shadow in the brown, polluted river.

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A train passing by in front of Guys Hospital and Southwark Tower, that in 2010 will be replaced by the 310m tall London Bridge Tower if it gets built.

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Westminster Cathedral and a part of Chelsea (or may be Pimlico).

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I was surprised by the great views from Primrose Hill. You can see the whole London skyline with almost all tall buildings from there.
Unfortunately it was starting to get dark and grey just when we reached the top of the hill.

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A closer look towards City (Tower 42, Swiss Re), Docklands (Canary Wharf Tower etc) and St Paul's Cathedral.


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A closer look towards Euston Tower, CentrePoint, British Telecom Tower in Camden and London Eye. Even though these structures look very close to each other in this picture, they are actually spread out over different districts, far from each other on different sides of Thames.

To find out more info about London's tall buildings, visit the London part of Emporis.

great pics looks very warm in them pics.

Nice!
I´m flying to London in about a month!
I love that vast skyline!

There is a lot of crane activity near the City Hall, does anybody knows what is going on there? Are they constructing the London Bridge Tower over there?
This one:
http://www.londonbridgetower.com/images/building/view_from_thames.jpg

They're building the More London offices (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=220928)

Yeah and the river isnt brown because it polluted.....its actually reported to be the cleanest city river in the world.

yes what eddy said. Its sediment.

Fantastic Pictures though :)

That is nice to hear: that it is not polluted because I think most people that see Thames think it is.

Peyre, I must thank you much because you made us find Primrose Hill, Greenwich Park and Hamsted Heth. I don't think I would go there and see this skyline views if you didn't get the tip in an early thread in the British section.

Peyre, I must thank you much because you made us find Primrose Hill, Greenwich Park and Hamsted Heth. I don't think I would go there and see this skyline views if you didn't get the tip in an early thread in the British section.

no problemo, always nice to help show off the city. I'm always finding new spots myself. Its so large that vantage point can appear all over the place.