Storey time
London's skyline is going to get pointier in 2023
Welcome to a new week in London and another free edition of London in Bits.
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On February 25 it will be exactly 300 years since Christopher Wren died.
Ironically, it was on a trip to London to see how St Paul’s was progressing that the architect “caught a chill,” which eventually led to his death.
There will likely be plenty of events and celebrations of Wren’s impact on London’s skyline next month, but you can also expect quite a lot of ‘turning in his grave’ comments, and grumblings about what Wren would have made of the skyline of 2023 London. Especially as there’s quite a lot of concrete and glass going up into our skies over the next 12 months.
What’s up?
Arguably the most controversial 2023 erection is Paddington Square, the 14-storey office block that’s going up right next to Paddington Station. The giant glass cube - which will sit on a podium to be filled with shops and restaurants, along with a new entrance to the Tube - was originally going to be a 254-metre high ‘pole’ that was going to do for Paddington “what The Shard did for London Bridge”. But the plans were pretty much universally derided and, in 2016, 54 storeys were cut from its height and it became a ‘cube’ instead (even then, the project was put on hold, after a petition called for a public inquiry into the plans).
Here’s one of those uncanny CGI ‘fly throughs’ of what the development might look like once it’s finished:
Also expected to arrive later in 2023 is 40 Leadenhall (or Stanza London as we’re supposed to call it). This project has acquired the slightly lame nickname ‘Gotham City’ as it takes up a whole block and doesn’t resemble anything you’d likely find in your kitchen, like a gherkin or a cheese grater. Instead, the ‘stepped blocks’ design is supposed to be inspired by the Bauhaus movement and the “neo-gothic” style of early 20th Century American buildings like the Rockefeller Centre.
The £400 million, 170m high development was originally due to be completed in 2019, but work was paused after the Brexit referendum and then again during Covid, so it only really got going in early 2020.
The most controversial 40 Leadenhall got was when the developers took out an injunction to stop ’urban explorers’ trespassing on their site and climbing all over the cranes (not that anyone had done that, they just didn’t want it to happen).
While, arguably the best thing to come out of the development is Shard Baby’s construction progress updates, beautifully rendered in MS Paint:
London’s tallest building under construction right now is nowhere near The City; it’s Consort Place on the Isle of Dogs. This development is actually made up of two buildings, one of which is 35 storeys high and the other which is a massive 65 storeys (or 216m). While the bigger tower “will feature 370 luxury apartments, a four-star 231-room hotel and modern health centre,” the smaller of the pair will apparently be home to “125 affordable apartments” made up from a mix of “social rent, affordable rent and shared ownership homes”.
Maybe the most notable thing about the Consort Place project though, is that it’s going to bring back what was once regarded as the best pub in Canary Wharf: the North Pole. Granted, in the early 2000s ‘best pub in Canary Wharf’ wasn’t exactly a tough competition to win, but the Pole was still a bit of a gem (especially its brilliant arctic signage) and a lot of people were sad to see it go when the doors closed in 2014 (after 160 years of trading). The website for the development calls the restored pub “the crowning gem of the development,” promises that it will be restored to its “former glory” and will “be everything a neighbourhood local should be”. We should find out if they’ve made good on that promise before the end of the year.
We have to go back the City’s ‘eastern cluster’ for the last skyscraper due to ‘top out’ in 2023. 8 Bishopsgate doesn’t have a nickname (yet), but it does have a pretty distinctive ‘stacked blocks’ design, which allows for 15,000 ft of outdoor terrace space amongst its 50 storeys.
The building also has sustainability creds coming out of every orifice, including the highest solar panels in London (weird flex) and a rainwater collection system which recycles Lonson’s drizzle so it can be used for “irrigation and toilet flushing.” The developers are also promising a top-floor viewing gallery that will be open to the public.
8 Bishopsgate was supposed to be finished before the end of last year, so it should be completed any month now.
Up and coming
Before we leave the subject of skyscrapers, we should note that ten more tall buildings are being planned for the Square Mile; with Shravan Joshi, chairman of the city’s planning and transportation committee, telling the Standard last week that, “They are all substantial buildings that will change the skyline of the City once more – or add to it.”
Only two of the developments have submitted formal applications so far: a 32-storey tower at 85 Gracechurch Street; and a monster 63-storey (285m) development at 55 Bishopsgate (to give that some context, the Shard - aka the tallest building in the UK - stands at 310m).
The other eight projects are in confidential “pre application” discussions for the time being.
On Friday, Paul Swinney from the Centre for Cities think tank, told Fortune magazine hat the arrival of these “behemoths” meant that “the days of entirely remote working could be numbered”. He also said that “if these buildings have a more distinctive look – like the Gherkin or the Shard – they’re more likely to get planning permission because of bias in planning authorities.” So, expect some more weird building nicknames to crop up in the next few years.
On a side note: remember when we were told that the “home-working boom” was going to “tumble London’s skyscrapers”?
Coming up on Wednesday ✏️
In our subscriber-only edition this week, it’s our first Where Do You Go? issue of 2023. We speak to the artists Marcus Dobbs about the magic of maps, the pull of the Thames and the romance of old churches
Subscribe to LiB today to make sure you don’t miss out:
We’re number one!
“London continues to reign as the planet’s best cities for the seventh year running.”
That slightly garbled sentence comes from 2023’s World’s Best Cities, the annual report produced by Resonance (“the leading global advisor on placemaking, branding and marketing”), just in time for January’s slow news period.
It’s interesting to see how companies like this define ‘best’, compared to how an organisation like the Economist goes about grading cities for its Global Liveability Index. When the WBC report explains why London has again topped its rankings, it talks about the fact that we have “the lowest corporation tax rate among G7 countries” and finds a fresh perspective on the recent electricity shortage in West London. After all, aren’t “energy-sucking data centers” a great sign of “tech and foreign investment into the city”?
There’s also a lot of emphasis on the fact that “an astonishing 61 luxury London properties—each worth $11.5 million or more—were sold in the first six months of 2022” and the news that Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri lives here now.
Maybe we just shouldn’t trust any report that includes ‘Facebook check-ins’ and ‘number of TripAdvisor reviews’ as part of its metrics.
In related news, property website HomeViews has just published its analysis of “28,962 verified reviews… to find the highest-rated locations across the UK” and according to them, Bromley is London’s highest rated borough thanks to its “range of shops and restaurants,” and transport connections.
Maybe more surprisingly, overall “south of the river wins over the north,” with six of the top 10 boroughs coming from South London and north London laying claim to the lowest rated borough: Barking & Dagenham.
5 little bits
We know you’re only here for the No Trousers Tube Ride pics, so here’s a quick gallery:
No Trousers Tube Day 2023 - Photos by JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images) On Saturday, the Mirror reported that Network Rail paid Michael Portillo £2,000 “to record special messages at King’s Cross station” as part of last year’s 70th anniversary celebrations.
The Oval Space club lost its license after a shooting in the venue in August of last year. Now it’s relaunched as Oval Studios “East London's most versatile warehouse… with 400 square metres of flexible indoor and outdoor space”.
Another London ‘institution’ has closed. Julie’s restaurant and bar in Holland Park has shut its doors after 53 years of serving grub to the likes of Princess Di, Tina Turner and Mick Jagger.
YouTube channel Shifter has paid a visit to London to see how it is “finally (slowly) turning into a bike city”:
