London's growing skyline
"The last piece in the jigsaw” is how architect Eric Parry described his design for 1 Undershaft, the tallest building in the City of London, when it was unveiled this week. It will crown the planned “cluster” of towers, standing right between the Cheesegrater and the Gherkin. But it’s far from the final piece – in fact, it’s only the beginning of another building boom."
All lines lead to St Paul’s
- St Paul’s Cathedral
- Tower of London
- Greenwich Park
- Richmond Park
- Westminster Pier
- Parliament Hill
- Kenwood
- Alexandra Palace
- Primrose Hill
- Blackheath Point
- London Eye
Regulations to safeguard long-distance views come in the form of the London View Management Framework. Governed by the mayor, this outlines a number of protected corridors from places such as Hampstead Heath, Alexandra Palace and King Henry’s mound in Richmond Park, where a special hole is still cut in the hedge to preserve the view of St Paul’s – so far away that planning calculations must incorporate the curvature of the earth.
All these invisible lines lead to St Paul’s, which stands sentry, keeping watch over the metropolis it has shaped for 300 years, sometimes in highly specific ways. The “dynamic view” of St Paul’s, travelling eastwards down Fleet Street to the west of the cathedral, has probably given more of the recent towers their shape than any other constraint or architect’s whim.
3D modelling available via http://www.centremapslive.co.uk
by Oliver Wainwright and Monica Ulmanu via http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/dec/11/city-of-london-skyline-of-tomorrow-interactive