Quite a long article on the future London skyline with some intersting bits of info on the proposed extra 5 floors for Heron & a description of Rafael Vinoly new tower on Fenchurch Street.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1539502,00.html

Over the next few years London's skyline will change dramatically with ever-taller high-rises planned in Canary Wharf and Bishopsgate. But is bigger really always best, asks Deyan Sudjic

Sunday July 31, 2005
The Observer


The proposed plan for Millharbour on the Isle of Dogs in east London. More photos


The glittering computer-generated images of the new Bishopsgate tower, a whopping 1,020 feet high, now going through the planning system, provide a jaw-dropping and disturbing glimpse of what London is on the verge of becoming. Not so much because of the tower itself, an upended baguette, but because of what they reveal about the impact of the wave of development now threatening to transform the city.
What they show is a relatively slender, ultra-tall tower, a distant cousin of Norman Foster's Swiss Re gherkin designed by the American firm KPF, but much larger, as the peak of a jumble of brash, aggressive, new blocks, each attempting to grab our attention. The tower's top is unravelling in a spiralling curve, and its shaft is apparently on the verge of crashing into the emphatic 45-degree slope of the neighbouring wedge-shaped tower designed by Richard Rogers on one side, and the Heron tower, also designed by KPF on the other. Together they form a mountainous landscape, or an alien space station dropped into the middle of the city.


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So far only the Swiss Re tower has been built, but a dozen or more are in the pipeline. They reveal that London's problem is not that it is turning itself into a Dallas or a Houston, as we used to worry. To judge by the wave of new developments on the way, London is going to be the nearest Europe comes to Shanghai. Footloose international finance, a mayor intoxicated by high-rise architecture, and a developer-friendly planning system have unleashed a wave of developments that are bigger, and brasher, than anything the city has yet seen.
In the last week alone, the City of London's planning committee has backed a design for a hulking 600-ft tower at Bishopsgate, designed in Chicago by SOM that will contain more than one million square feet of office space. Its exposed steel structure, like belt and giant braces, will make the glass tower one of London's most conspicuous new buildings, a cowboy striding into town. Canary Wharf has got the go ahead for yet another three million square feet of unappetising looking offices, and is planning to build four new skyscrapers, ranging from 600 to 725ft high, two designed by Richard Rogers and the others by Cesar Pelli with Will Alsop.

American architect Rafael Vinoly has been trying to gather support for a conspicuous new tower on Fenchurch Street for Land Securities, that would have a bold, sculptural silhouette, and a large public space on its top floor. And opposite Tate Britain, construction is about to begin on the Vauxhall Tower, Broadway Malyan's joyless 600-ft high block of flats. Ken Livingstone and John Prescott backed it, even though the planning inspector concluded it was the wrong building for the wrong site.

Each new project looks bigger and more wilful than the last, but the only constraint applied by the planners is to protect the views of St Paul's. That may be desirable but it is leading to the creation of concentrations of new buildings on the eastern edge of the city that will end up as the new face that London presents to the world. And it's not an appetising sight.

Any one of the dozen or so giants that have been unveiled over the past few months will have a major impact on London. But taken together, they amount to nothing less than the redefinition of the city. In the past each of them would have provoked endless argument, but the sheer quantity of new schemes seems to have paralysed any serious discussion.

London's personality depends on more than keeping blue sky in the background of the views of Christopher Wren's dome. It depends on a pedestrian city that has not had its pavements turned into Manhattan-like canyons and on striking a balance between the City and Canary Wharf, rather than allowing these competing financial centres to build each other to a standstill in pursuit of office tenants who may not exist.

Far from trying to cool things down, the quango charged with safeguarding architectural quality, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe), is standing by and applauding. 'Ten years ago, the City was on its way to turning empty offices into residential space. Now it is clearly back with a huge vengeance,' says Cabe's deputy chairman, Paul Finch. 'The City's planning policies have allowed London to restate its case to be one of the top three financial centres in the world.'

Rather than trying to stop big new developments, Cabe has concentrated on ensuring that architects it approves of get to build them. As well as Richard Rogers and Norman Foster, Jean Nouvel, Rem Koolhaas and other architectural celebrities have benefited from this policy. Cabe's view, echoing that of the City planners and Ken Livingstone, appears to be to allow the market to let rip, provided St Paul's is untouched, and that developers use famous architects.

'The city certainly won't draw a line that says people can go this high, and no higher,' says Finch. 'Developers believe that they stand a better chance of getting planning permission if they use a good architect, and that is leading to the kind of architecture we are seeing.'

As a means for ensuring a balanced new city it seems dangerously dependent on the property bubble not bursting, and on the belief that architectural celebrity is enough to ensure urban quality.

Until this summer, we could still believe that despite the occasional eruption of concrete, London was recognisably the same city that Canaletto had painted. It had the dome of St Paul's at its centre. The tallest new structure, now called Tower 42, known as the NatWest tower when it was completed 25 years ago, was an isolated one-off. But now London is about to remodel itself with two or three clumps of ultra high-rise buildings.

The planners are trying to concentrate new developments in a few designated areas, mainly in order to protect the views of St Paul's. That is what has led to emerging so-called eastern cluster along Bishopsgate. What these clusters actually mean is the creation of a solid wall of towers, such as Monument Valley, erupting from the prairies. So fast are things changing in London now, that Urbanism expert Hal Moggridge has, apparently seriously, called for Norman Foster's Swiss Re tower to be given the same air-corridor view protection as St Paul's before it vanishes into a scrum of other towers.

'Richard Rogers has been asked to design a block in front of it, which seems rather a mistake when you have a design of that quality,' Moggridge told a conference on the future of the city recently.

The drastic change in the nature of the London skyline goes back five years to the public inquiry into Gerald Ronson's Heron Tower. This was the first of the new crop of London towers and was vigorously opposed by English Heritage, but not Cabe.

English Heritage lost the legal battle, and that defeat appears to have cowed the heritage lobby into submission. The rapid award of planning permission for Norman Foster's howitzer-shell Swiss Re subsequently redefined the limits of the aesthetically acceptable. The result has been to turn large parts of London into a free-fire zone for developers.

Sometimes it seems as if they can't quite believe what is happening and are daring the rest of us to react, playing a game of grandmother's footsteps to see just how much they can get away with. 'They can't possibly roll over, and take this one seriously,' you can almost hear them thinking.

But we do. The tallest building in Europe? Yes please says Ken Livingstone. An even taller tower? Why not say the city planners. Can we build the Vauxhall Tower? The tallest block of flats in Europe, the block that the planning inspector wanted to turn down because it will wreck the view of the palace of Westminster. Why not, say Livingstone and John Prescott. True, the former conservative environment minister Kenneth Baker, was moved enough to stage a debate in the House of Lords to vent his frustration with this particular project, but it got him nowhere,

'It's an awful decision, This building is a disaster, it is massively out of place and will set a precedent that tells developers that they can propose building in completely the wrong place, but will have the sympathy of John Prescott,' he said.

What next Is Will Alsop, involved with the latest Canary Wharf monster, going to get to build one of his zany teddy-bear shaped buildings that he first mooted for the centre of Manchester? No reason at all not to think he won't at this rate, especially when you see Ronson, the developer who went through a long drawn out legal battle to get planning permission for the Heron tower, going back to ask for even more height.

His revised application was to put extra floors on top of the tower to make space among other things for a swimming pool. It all sounds like something out of New York's golden age of skyscraper baroque, when the Chrysler building kept its Art Deco spire a closely guarded secret, and only revealed it at the last minute to make sure that none of its competitors could top it.

The only way to save London from itself is a property crash in the next few months. But though some financial observers equate a burst of irrational exuberance among skyscraper builders as a clear signal of imminent economic doom, the cheerleaders for London's transformation at Cabe, shut their eyes to any such possibility. 'As far as the city is concerned, there is a belief that the demand is there. It is based on the Mayor of London's plan that says 90 million square feet of office space is needed in London by 2015,' says Finch. 'These people are not gamblers.'

London's first cluster, at Canary Wharf, is getting denser and thicker. When the first isolated tower was built there in the Eighties, it had a certain sculptural quality. That has long gone, and instead what we have is a solid, leaden mass, glowering over the streets of the old East End.

The second cluster aligned on Bishopsgate, is emerging to the accompaniment of a lot of pseudo-scientific post rationalisation. Lee Polisano from KPF, an architect who looks much too self-effacing and mild mannered to be responsible for the design of two of the tallest towers in Europe on a single street in London, suggests: 'Our design unites and balances the new emerging tall buildings within the city by completing the apex to the cluster.'

Of course, the next architect asked to design an even taller tower in the same area will say the same thing about their tower.

Too many planning permissions have already been granted for London to go back now. We are in for a period of massive change in the way that they city looks and feels, and we should at least be grateful to Polisano, and his high-rise baguette for alerting us to what is on the way. That doesn't mean that we are going to learn to love it. And for his project at least, there is still time to say no.

High rise baguette???

Oh yeah, if London still looked the way Canaletto painted it then things may have been different... Canaletto's london was long wrecked by the blitzed, and teh deacades that followed.... it can never return in that form,

But what we are doing is recreating the modern improvement on canaletto's london, one with a skyline ... not a slab of groundscrapers forced to the ground by restrictive policies, groundscrapers that eat up all the space available on the pavement...

London needs international recognition for its dynamism and forward looking attitude. It is a global world and competing with the likes of New York and Tokyo, if just for reputation, is vital to staying at the top of the financial game. It would be ignorant to shun reality, to shun the fact that London needs the most prestigious office space available anywhere in the world if its going to seriously provide for the top businesses.... London's reputation has never been better.

Let's see the same article about that alien elephant ferris wheel...

again the articles of doom and despair tell us of no other vision. What is their way forward? Just sit back and imagine glories lost? Be content with 70s London? Destroy all the office space? Move London to the Docklands? There are far more depressing developments and architectural muggings going on all over London while journalists mis-aim at our few world-class towers!

Quite a long article on the future London skyline with some intersting bits of info on the proposed extra 5 floors for Heron & a description of Rafael Vinoly new tower on Fenchurch Street.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1539502,00.html

Over the next few years London's skyline will change dramatically with ever-taller high-rises planned in Canary Wharf and Bishopsgate. But is bigger really always best, asks Deyan Sudjic

Sunday July 31, 2005
The Observer
"...They reveal that London's problem is not that it is turning itself into a Dallas or a Houston, as we used to worry. To judge by the wave of new developments on the way, London is going to be the nearest Europe comes to Shanghai...."

Oooo BITCH!

What a rubbish article. :bash: I feel like arguing with the writer.

Just wait and see, when all these towers are built these idiots will be the first people to praise them; once they see that London is enriched rather than scarred by these new wonders of architecture. Just like they did with the gherkin. :cheers:

Fools. Simply put London can't grow outwards. These are world class scrapers we are getting, scrapers that will keep London at the forefront of architechtual innovation and financial competitiveness.

some one should send an email to the journalist and see if they get a response.

''90 million square feet of office space needed by 2015''!!!!
This will ensure that London gets a dense cluster -- concidering that:
The Bishopsgate Tower: 947,232 sq ft
Minerva: 1,000,000sq ft
Leadenhall: 1,000,000sq ft
Heron Tower: 679,585 ft²
Willis: 694,374sq ft

New buildings proposed, approved or u/c will provide 5,000,000sq ft of offices for the square mile. another 85,000,000sq ft to go!!!

^^ Leadenhall is 500,000+ sq ft

Yep, and Willis is about 450,000 sq ft.

Why? because its cut in half! j/k

look: The redevelopment of 122 Leadenhall Street, a low-rise office building built in 1969, will create a 92,905sq m (1m sq ft) tower designed by renowned architect Lord Richard Rogers of the Richard Rogers Partnership. Reaching a height of roughly 214m (701ft) to the top of the lift shafts and 231m (759ft)

Not another one! Emporis is rubbish!!

yeah! its including the little 8 story one:
Foster's latest creation is a 130m (426ft) tall, 25-storey office tower on a site next to the famous Lloyd's of London headquarters on Lime Street. It will provide 64,511sq m (694,374sq ft) of office space.

But then....Two buildings of striking design by Foster and Partners will offer 475,000 sq ft of net floor area of high quality accommodation directly opposite Lloyd's Insurance market, of which 465,000 sq ft is pre-let to Willis Group.

Oh yeah, if London still looked the way Canaletto painted it then things may have been different... Canaletto's london was long wrecked by the blitzed, and teh deacades that followed.... it can never return in that form,

Exactly If London looked like it did pre blitz I'd be even more in love with the place, it really saddens me so much ! Thats whats in the heart of the writer of that article, but even he knows deep down that London hasnt been that for many years. Mores the pity but instead we must face facts and look to the future. Thats what these towers represent.

Think about it, How will these towers which are mostly placed only in certain clusters have changed that nice coffee you have at covent garden, that book you buy at charing cross, admiring the atmosphere of trafalgar square, walking through hampstead heath ?? nothing thats what ???? There are a few standalones, I agree with vauxhall tower being wholly wrong myself, but LBT is itself a shining spire and will be awesome to behold.

Look Mr writer ( whatshisnameagain ) I dearly want Wrens lost churches to be rebuilt, I want more classical architecture to be constructed, I want those canopys to return to shop fronts, I want a return to a more literal streetscape....oh where was I....Yes but these towers can be viewed as a compliment.

Hands up who has ever stood on waterloo or hungerford bridge ( I think hungerford is easily the most impressive but thats me ) and stared in awe at the citys skyline ahead of you ? lights flashing on tall buildings and ST Pauls defiantley holding its own ! Imagine that scene in 2012 and then tell me its not worth it.

shall I send that to him?

Yes do Zenith. This writer I assume was probably against Swiss Re being built amongst other successful London projects.

Someone should definitely put together an informed response.

if you look at how quickly london's skyline and the context of this article i think it is a highly intelligent piece.

the new towers apart from richard rogers red and blue ones which won't get built for ages aren't too good. the riverside south towers are not bad but what is proposed for north quay is an incoherent glass mess.

colombus tower looks as though it could be a cracker though - that is, if it gets built.

interestingly, i am in shanghai right now. i wouldn't want the pearl tv tower in london thats for sure. the city 2012 landscape WILL look alien! i think it'll look great but it has to be coherently designed. the towers need to compliment each other.... london only gets one go at this. demolishing towers is tricky....

winchester house and the old UCL hospital took ages to demolish and southwark towers will take a year or so. the change is massive, a complete makeover. and largely permanant. the planners have to get it right!

i also think that i agree that swiss re should be kept in view from waterloo bridge as it is such a fantastic new piece of modern architecture.

i think the point that dejan sudjic was trying to make (he was a big supporter of the swiss re tower btw) was that london is changing so fast... and that the irreversible decisions that the planning bodies are making right now will shape policy for decades to come. and will shape the future of the city for ever.

with skyscrapers i'd like london to have a coherent plan.

the vauxhall tower is 'just' about passable. the new beetham tower in southwark is absolutely terrible, far too tall and just in the wrong place. we shouldn't have 200 metre plus buildings right on the thames. put. maybe in canary wharf but not in the west end.

london has a chance to concentrate its high rise development in clusters.

the east city cluster i approve of
the canary wharf cluster i approve of

the southwark cluster around guys hospital i approve of
the elephant and castle one sounds okay

but the vauxhall one will have to be handled carefully. the new cluster that is being proposed near the beetham monster is pretty worrying. that tower is just wrong..... the wrong tower for the wrong place.

a cluster around centre point might be okay, but the quality of the architecture would have to be top notch.

if we had lots of towers right in the middle of mayfair, knightsbridge, soho etc etc i'm not sure if that'd be a good idea. i'd like streets like regents street to be kept coherent and intact with low rise architecture.

what does everyone else think?

also can we have some brick and stone towers please?

The trouble with most articles about skyscrapers is the faer that London will turn into a clone of most american cities & destroy a long distant London od Dickens or Wren that simply doesn't exist anymore. IMO I think its lazy writing- do the journalists even know or walk around the site where these towers are, all the proposed towers are replacing post war badly designed offices & not quanit old victorian buildings. The same goes for CW- the land is empty. Do tehy really think we shuooold have massive groundscrapers instead as was the vogue in the 90's which take up entire blocks & do nothing for the area- Look at the masive merrill lynch building that runs along Farringdon station- its a nasty wall of around 5/6 storeys that does nothing for the area.

Of course we shouldn't put tall buildings anywhere but you can see only a few clusters forming- the city already has one anyway-what will happen is that it will get taller & denser, same for CW. London bridge may get one but I would suggest the only other tall building there will be whatever LBT little brother as theres not many other viable sites around that area to build tall. Blackfriars road with beetham, wilkons Eyre & kings reach will probably be bearable, same for Stratford & E&C. I cant really see many othere areas that would allow tall buildings which only leaves Vauxhall as a dubious one- If , as goth suggest there will be more resi towers to from a tower then I think it would be ok but they will have to be a better design than the vauxhall tower.

All the other areas of central london at least, Cov gardn, Soho , regent st etc shouldn't have tall buildings & probably wouln't allow them. Remember Lodnon is huge & you can have different buildings of different heights in many areas without effecting the more established areas we all love.

With reagrd the masses of applications now with will cahcnget he skyline in a short time- It is IMO just London on the catch up- we have finally begun to live with tall buildings & due to reluctance in the past the great majority of new proposals will be of the highest quality & will become new icons for London the same as modern structures like the Eye & Swiss Re have already become.

Ow yeah- forgot to add the more positive aspects of the article & its little nuggets of info- especially this bit;

"American architect Rafael Vinoly has been trying to gather support for a conspicuous new tower on Fenchurch Street for Land Securities, that would have a bold, sculptural silhouette, and a large public space on its top floor."

Cant wait to see images of this realeased at some point :)

Every debate has two sides doesn't it! I can't hate a bloke that comes up with 'highrise baguette' either! Will that one stick I wonder?

I agree with most of what you say Dom.

I am generally really happy with all the proposals and think we've got it right. However I think there is a very real risk that the pro development lobby will f*ck it up with out of place rubbish like the proposed Beetham tower.

London = NYC in 10 years ? Are you kidding? How many developers (speculators) actually plan to go ahead with the construction of these skyscrapers? What's their real agenda .... ?

New powers to speed up the planning system and ensure developers deliver

see http://www.freemansnews.com/mainstory.asp?2991699
Article 2991699
PRW - Thursday, August 04, 2005

New powers for Local Planning Authorities to ensure that developers deliver on planning permissions and speed up the planning system were announced by ODPM Minister Phil Woolas.

The powers in the 2004 Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act aim to reduce the uncertainty caused by speculators who benefit from increases in land value upon receiving planning permission but have no intention of development. This is the next piece in the jigsaw of planning reform that will speed up the system and provide more certainty for communities and developers.

The reforms will mean that:

* Local Authorities will have greater powers to decline to determine repeat planning applications from developers trying to wear-down resistance to inappropriate development;

* Most planning permissions will be granted for three years, instead of the current five, except where the local authority agrees to a longer period;

* Statutory consultees will have to respond to requests for advice within 21 days to help speed-up planning decisions;

* Concurrent inquiry sessions may be held at inquiries into applications for major infrastructure development called-in by the Secretary of State to reduce inquiry time.

Phil Woolas said:

"We are sending a message to developers that they have a role to play in creating a faster, more certain planning system that delivers well designed sustainable communities where people want to live and work. These measures will stop developable land from being wasted by speculators, and prevent developers from submitting identical applications to wear down opposition to undesirable development, which is an irritation for local authorities and the public.

"It is right that for the majority of development planning permission expires after three years. It is also right that developers will no longer be able to simply seek to extend the life of the permission where they fail to get started in time. However, on this particular point we have listened to the concerns of the property industry and will therefore be giving them 12 months grace before it applies to current permissions."

Last month Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott announced a major shake-up of the planning system to respond better to market demand for more homes, ensuring more first-time buyers get the chance to afford homes of their own.

It included a consultation on a new Greenbelt Direction will provide strengthened planning controls in greenbelt areas, ensuring closer scrutiny of planning applications and the referral of significant developments for his consideration.

Well, I'm wondering who actually gets to see these views? how many times have the London residents on this forum actually walked across these bridges to get these protected views in the last year? I think I've done it twice andthat was only because I had an hour to kill at lunchtime. London isn't really about views because it doesn't rally have a natural viewpoint like some of the other skyscraper focussed cities NY HK even Sydney, it doesnt have a waterfront. The beauty of London is when you're walking down some old street that might have been there since roman times and come across some building you weren't expecting to see. be it an old church or a skyscraper.

I can understand where this writer is coming from but I dont think building tall in the City will fundamentally change it, but I do agree that some of these high rise developments are very oportunistic as they know Ken wont oppose them!