Architecture critic of The Guardian, Rowan Moore, isn’t pleased in the last months of Boris Johnson’s London.
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It’s not just about tall buildings, although the number of towers higher than 20 storeys proposed for London now stands at more than 400. It’s also about bloated, bulging, light-blocking buildings of medium height, and about the limited attempts to insist on design quality, or to get new developments to create neighbourhoods that are more than a sum of their parts, or have any meaningful relationships with the areas into which they are inserted.
This article could have come straight from The Onion: “English Architecture Critic Feels Put Upon, Bored”.
This is a remarkable article quite unusual for Price Tags, much appreciated nevertheless!
We are reading reality but whether we are capable of learning and change is anther matter.
On my last visit to the smoke, as we used to call it, my visit to Lloyds was interrupted because of a supposed terrorist threat: the Shard and Gherkin were under construction. So I do not have hands on experiences of those ludicrous contraptions.
But it seems to me, given my very limited itinerary, “As London mayor Boris Johnson prepares to leave City Hall pity his successor” is advice a twenty-first century city mayor anywhere may heed!
Vancouver with its plethora “ill-planned developments and vanity projects is no exception.
I know from decades of experience mature discussion about development in Vancouver is off limits.
“It also has to be asked how far the logic of stacking up units can be pushed. Why not maximise everything everywhere?” Indeed!
I experienced, thirty odd years ago, what I thought was a professional disaster. As it turned out it became a life changing experience I would not have missed for all the fancy braggadocio, pomp ceremony and medals that this shambolika is leading us into.
I know from personal experience this over building, Vancouver, London, Paris, Buenos Aries, Mexico City, is a world wide contamination wise mayors would heed if they had any sense of responsibility to their civic tenure!
Sounds like London, for all it’s history, is up for a wake-up to. Try it sometime!
And yet London only recently surpassed it’s 1939 population peak. They somehow managed that prewar figure without a forest of skyscrapers.
It’s time for central banks to back away from ultralow interest rates which are fuelling this mad property inflation.
Don;t blame the banker. Blame the politicians and their (left leaning) voters ! Ultra-low interest rates are here to stay, mainly to rescue overspending governments from collapse. $30B is the current annual deficit in Canada now .. $4000/family of 4 .. PER YEAR and $10B in Alberta alone or another $10,000 for a family of 4 ! $14,000 is one year alone !
Luckily we live in a somewhat debt constrained BC with fiscally more responsible spenders. Progressives” buying themselves benefits at the expense of future generations ! This is sustainable ? This is “green” ? This is “progressive” ?
Why will interest rates stay low: http://www.prestprop.com/2015/02/04/interest-rates-will-stay-low-long-long-time/
Well said Thomas . . . R
That skyline is a joke. Why are we not laughing?