Sekforde Street doorways and fanlights

Walking down Sekforde Street again recently, I stopped to admire the lovely coloured glass fanlights above the doors at numbers 31 and 32. 

Ooh. Nice. 

This little street offers an amazing diversity of Georgian doorstep gorgeousness and the following eight examples are all from the northern half of the street...

I wonder if the people who drink at the Sekforde Arms have ever noticed these delightful doors, let alone the impressive façade of The Finsbury Bank For Savings.

Unusual light wells and coal holes

Earlier this year I stopped in my tracks outside 258 Pentonville Rd, when I happened upon a very unusual light well running the full width of the shop.
I say 'unusual' because it's got coal hole cover plates embedded within it (one at each end) and this was the first of this kind I have ever seen.

Ironwork and glass made by The British Luxfer Prisms company

Further sleuthing on Google Streetview shows the reason I hadn't ever noticed it before – it's been covered up for at least ten years, and this also explains its rusty condition.
And then last month I found another one in Birchin Lane a narrow street that joins Cornhill to Lombard Street in The Square Mile. Half way along, near Cowper Court, I happened upon a simpler [later?] combo with glass bricks embedded into concrete.

Made by Haywards Ltd

And then, can you believe it, I found another one – this time just off Cloth Fair. And here's me thinking I am observant yet I have been marching past these for decades! This particular site has even has some light wells arranged as the steps into the building (I had already spotted that though!).

It's amazing how interesting and diverse these light wells can be. At the junction of Jewry Street/India Street in EC3 there some examples with lovely horse motifs on them which, again, is something I haven't seen elsewhere, though, judging by the cole-hole-light-well-combos I will probably be finding more soon.

Made by the St Pancras Ironworks Company

I am not the only nerd interested in this kind of thing. See Yelfy's Faded London for more.

Halo Tower, Stratford

Wandering along Stratford High Street the other week I stopped to photograph this mosaic depicting a street seller.

A Georgian flower seller

I was then distracted by the tower block looming behind it – Halo Tower at No.50 is 133 metres tall, has 33 floors and is built in the 'iconic' style.

Views to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

But look closer at the outside of the building and see how the panels on this tower, which is less than five years old (completed 2014), are already starting to deteriorate.

The colour on the dark blue paint panels is flaking away

Genesis' blurb for the building reads "With a central 43 floor residential tower rising high above the London skyline, Stratford Halo is a truly landmark development". 
Another site tells me "It's modernistic look attracts high profile businessmen and wealthy people such as YouTubers". Oh, right.
If this is the quality of the fabric on the outside of this building what hope is there for the quality of the workmanship on the interior?

Genesis signage on the building itself and Filtons estate agent window

The information on the ground floor of the building highlights the facilities that come with renting an apartment of this kind; concierge services, integrated branded appliances, dedicated onsite property manager (who doesn't appear to be managing the property very well so far), communal sky gardens, and, of course, gym facilities.
Interesting that there only appears to be rental opportunities.
These clip-together buildings concern me.

And another thought about buying new property regarding the terms of freeholds and leaseholds; how does a 125 year lease apply when many similar new builds will more than likely not last more than 20 years? Where is the security? These are obviously intended as transient property purchases, not homes for living the rest of your life in. 
Call me weird, but I'll stick with bricks and mortar.

IWA Canalway Cavalcade, this Bank Holiday Weekend, 30April–02May, Little Venice

Three days of colourful boats, entertainment, food, stalls and music.
See the website for more info.
Come and find me at my stall at the far end of the row above the towpath on Warwick Crescent where I will have a broad selection of items for sale:

Greeting cards (blank inside with envelopes) featuring some of my canal and Cavalcade images. More cards here.

Clay pipe jewellery,  Thames glass pendants,  Clay Pipe Pete and Smokey Joe greeting cards,      London landmark cards,  upcycled leather accessories,  tins and small bric-a-brac

Warwick Crescent – What a lovely location!

The shops of Fortis Green Road, Muswell Hill

Ooh I do love an old shop front, especially if it still retains its original curved window and tiled entrance. London has lost most of these beautiful old shops – only solitary examples remain here and there hinting at how the whole terrace might have looked 100 years ago.
Often the best examples of this kind are found outside London, say in seaside towns that lost favour at the end of the last century such as Leigh-On-Sea, Walton-On-Thames, Margate or Southsea, all of which have more recently become appreciated (as have their house prices).
However, some really good examples of early 20th century shopping streets can be found in Muswell Hill, London N10 and, in particular along the southern end of Fortis Green Road.

Some of the lovely old tiles are still visible. However, some of them have been painted over as shown in the middle row. Why oh why?

Walking north from the Art Deco cinema at the junction of Muswell Hill Broadway up to Queen's Avenue notice how almost every doorway on both sides of Fortis Green Road still retains its original curved window and tiled entrances leading to the upstairs apartments.
Also, be sure to stop and admire New Century Barbers on the corner of First Avenue, which also retains some fabulous period features and signs, and has a lot of archive photos of the local area.

Gone but not forgotten – G. Smith & Sons, tobacconist and purveyor of snuff

The first of a new series remembering shops and businesses I have known or used myself that have closed down or been demolished in the last few years.

Today I'm rembering a shop in Charing Cross Road. It sat within a long line of antiquarian bookshops, that used to run from Cambridge Circus down to Leicester Square Station.  

G.F Smith & Sons at No.74, was a beautiful old tobacconist's shop with a lovely old mirrored frontage and hand-painted gilt lettering showing they were purveyors of fine cigars and smoking paraphernalia. The shop was established in 1879 and used to be able to claim that it was one of the oldest/longest-trading shops in the Soho area. It was also the meeting place for the The London Snuff Club

I took these pics in 2008 when the shop was a garish orange (it was soonafter repainted royal blue – you can just make out the scaffolding in the mirror).

But, sadly, the shop closed in 2012 or 2013. I can't seem to find a definitive date or what exactly caused the shop's demise but I suspect the revised smoking laws of 2006 had a huge effect on sales – see above for their adaption of My Way that was in the shops' window in August 2008 – the pink highlights are mine (grr!). And I suspect that the humidor at the rear of the shop fell foul of the regulations against indoor smoking within work premises. Some products and reference can be found on Google here.

As you can see by this screenshot, from Google Streetview (July 2015), the shop can be seen with original woodwork painted a soft beige colour, but I wonder what became of Smith's lovely hand-painted glass, the tobacco stock and and all the advertising ephemera?

Charing Cross Road used to be lined with bookshops of all kinds and has been the inspiration for novels and films etc. The larger shops were at the northern end (Foyles, Waterstones, Blackwells etc) and smaller independents specialising in certain fields especially, art, maps, second-hand and rare antique books could be found south of Cambridge Circus.
At the time of writing, this specific section of the road mentioned above has only about three bookshops remaining, the others having been replaced with cafés and coffee houses, souvenir and clothes shops; crushed under the wheels of high rent and homogenisation. It's called progress.
More antiquarian shops can be found a few minutes' walk away along St Giles Court and St Martin's Court, (both further down Charing Cross on the left just after Leicester Square station) where you can still while away the hours amongst books, prints, maps, coins, stamps, medals and more.

Update Dec 2025: whilst tidying up a stack of books just now, I rediscovered Eccentric London by Tom Quinn, published in 2005. I haven't looked at it in years and I now see that it includes a whole page about tobacco/snuff shops headed by a marvellous of GF Smith's by Ricky Leaver. At that time the shop was painted a gorgeous shade of deep red, later painted orange as per my own pics above, and then blue. I'm sure I recall it was a shade of blue in the 1980s. The book is packed full of curiosities and oddities, most of which are still intact 20 years later, unlike this shop.

Hmmm... thinks... Smith the stationer, Smith the umbrella maker, Smith & Nephew the chemists and Smith the tobacconist and snuff seller... any more?  

You can wash your hands

I live near the Emirates Stadium, home to Arsenal football club.
It means nothing to me except that I sometimes have to change my journey if I need to use the public transport on a match day due to the restrictive in/out at the tube station when a game starts and finishes or the slow traffic on the roads. Oh, and some of the supporters invade my local pub. But at least they have good taste.
One good thing about the stadium is the facilitates an easy cut through when walking from Holloway to Blackstock Road via Drayton Park and Gillespie Road. and it's rather nice wandering around the stadium when there is no one else there.

When I was doing just that recently I noticed how a glimpse of old houses in Drayton Park formed part of a mini quilt pattern in amongst the contemporary architecture so I took a photo. Turning into Gillespie Road the tube station was like a jewel against the bright blue winter sky.
Back in August 2009 I took a wander around the stadium. Below are some of the shots from that day.

I have only ever been inside the stadium once, and that was for a Bruce Springsteen gig. Dave, my then boyfriend was, and still is, a big fan of The Boss and had bought us overpriced tickets to see him at the Emirates. Stadiums are so not my choice of venue for live music and he knew that. So I have no idea why he bought me a ticket to see someone I vaguely like at a huge impersonal venue, bet, hey, that's another story.
So there I stood with Dave and his friends in the middle of the plastic covered pitch, craning to see something. The sound was dreadful; muffled. The view was hindered because I couldn't see over the heads in front of me and the live film feed was being shown on the screens that sat on the stage rather than the ones up high (eh?!) and Bruce and co were wearing black against a black backdrop. Add to that the beer choice was piss lager or crap lager.
So I left about half way through and walked 5 minutes to the pub where I could hear it clearer and sup on a pint of something no-gassy.
As I was making my exit the security man on the door asked why I was leaving. I said because of the poor saound. he said many people had complained the night before. Oh gawd.

The Developing City

Back in September 2012 I went to an exhibition about the past, present and future of architecture in London. It was called The Developing City and I took some photos of the information there. I rediscovered the pictures when looking for the Norton Folgate pics I posted last week. Strange how I never put this together before now. Here goes...

The exhibition was set out chronologically; there were lots of informative panels about the City of London and how it has been transformed and adapted over the years. And there were some great old archive photos.
One thing that particularly caught my eye was a proposal for the site where the Grade II listed Mappin and Webb building used to be, now occupied by a building often compared a Battenberg cake or a 1930's wireless (an unusual building that bears close inspection – it's full of interesting details and historical references).

As you can see, The Prince Of Wales had his Hideous Carbuncle hat on referring to the glass tower as a "giant glass stump" and he helped to put a stop to the scheme. So, it begs the question, how on earth did we end up with so many other equally hideous, even larger, glass stumpy things since then?
Moving westwards along Poultry and into Cheapside, let's look at Cheapside in the past, shown in these four pics with St Mary Le Bow at the centre:

 Top: 1760 and 1837
Bottom: (oops forgot to note the dates) early and mid 20th century  

In the past, London was more compact and Cheapside was a fashionable bustling shopping street lined with every kind of shop imaginable. Most of these grand buildings managed to remain vertical through WW2 but by the twentieth century the men with the purse strings had decided to that most of the street ought to be replaced with glass and the proles needed more clothes and coffee flavoured water. So the Dubaiification and homogenisation began and in the last decade we have ended up with this:

All from google streetview March 2015

After the Great Fire of London, Wren proposed a complete re-working and re-building of the City. The close up on the right shows clearly how the church spires all begin well above the rooftops of the houses, shops and offices beneath:

Then, in the middle of the twentieth century Hitler tried very hard to flatten the City, as shown in the B&W panoramic photo, below, of the Barbican area taken in 1942* which is where the Barbican was built (but that's another story). Compare and contrast with what looks like bomb damage in the second image but is actually a photograph of the wilful clearance and construction of One New Change (shown in the Streetview images above, top right). 

In the middle of the exhibition space was a large scale model showing what was to come. I stood aghast at the glass. It saddened me. In the same way this does. Most of this has happened already. It's all happening way too fast for me.

I didn't stop to look at many of the boards showing ideas for the future. It all looked a bit plastic and manufactured to me. I am hoping I will be dead by then. What happened to those words they were flinging about pre-Olympics; 'sustainability' and 'legacy'?

Website for The Developing City

One more observation... 'we' are knocking down old buildings made of natural stone that was created by compressing of layers and layers of dead matter over millions of years. In the space of a few days these noble blocks are demolished; discarded or used as rubble, to be replaced with manmade composites and factory components; glass, steel, carbon fibre and the like that will last a fraction of that time. It's all about the money, honey. Money talks and calls it progress.

*This image, and many more like it, can be found at The London Metropolitan Archives.

Accentuate the positive – three nice things on the No.19 bus route

The nicest way to get from Finsbury Park to Battersea Bridge (north side) is to relax and enjoy the view from the top deck of a No.19 bus as it cuts a diagonal path through London taking in Islington, Clerkenwell, Bloomsbury, Piccadilly, Knightsbridge and Chelsea.
There are lots of lovely things to see along the way. Here are just three of them:

Rosebery Avenue

Theobalds Road

Shaftesbury Avenue

Three nice things – a new series by Jane's London

Bottles and bricks on Battersea beach

Every now and then I get a group of friends together and we go for what I call "A Forage on the Foreshore".
Yesterday the weather was forecast as 6ºC but bright and sunny, so a few of us including Caroline and Malcolm met up under the south side of Battersea Bridge. Having enjoyed it there last time, this time we did the same walk in reverse, continuing westwards almost to the railway bridge and then retraced our steps halfway back again to return to street level via the slipway next to the old church.
The beach at Battersea is mostly shingly and pebbly but there are some interesting old things to be spotted by the eagle-eyed.
As seen under my shadow here, the foreshore is littered with old building bricks, and many of them have names embedded in them. At first, seeing so many with the name RAMSAY on them we thought there must have been a brick-making factory on that site, but moving on we found lots more names, including NETTLE and THISTLE (nice) so I now think these are the remains of some demolished buildings, especially as some of the fancier shaped pieces had numbers on them which, I'd assume, were identification codes for the builders as to where they should be placed. More ideas about this are welcome.

Considering how many Ramsay bricks we saw it's hard to fathom how I didn't capture one. Of the others, Thistle, Nettle, Sneyd, Douglas, Brandon and Stephenson were easy to read but the last three aren't so clear – Cliff(something)–Worth(sonething), Phorpres? and John Steve(ns/son)?

Further along, near four house boats moored parallel to the shore, we found a lot of glass – big chunks with metal bits embedded within, etched fragments, broken and tide-tumbled pieces, little medicine bottles and jars, and one ink bottle with its stopper inside.

Here are some of the finds I brought home including four clay pipe stem fragments that will probably end up in a necklace, and some nice old bits of pottery which I have yet to date.

If you'd like to join us for a forage just contact me via my other site here.

Jane's Connect. What links these pics?

Here's a little quiz for Christmas, though unlike these cards it has got nothing to do with the time of year or Christmas at all.
All of the above are in central London and are linked in some way. Can you identify the link?

12 clues; some quickly identifiable, others a bit tougher (but you only get four clues on Only Connect).

It's here, it's there, it's every bloody where

I recently went for a walk around the Fenchurch Street area of the City, popping into churches, investigating little streets and alleys and admiring old buildings and their interesting details.
But that bloody Walkie Talkie loomed over me from almost everywhere.
As you are probably well aware from my previous posts, I am not a fan of all this heavy-handed steel and glass architecture (see here and here) that's sprouting up like some kind of instant Dubaiification.
The Pointy Thing at London Bridge is just a greenhouse that tapers towards the top, and conversely, though similarly, 20 Fenchurch Street is just a tower block that flares out at the top but has the added bonus of being able to fry eggs and melt cars.

As viewed from Blackfriars, from Potters Fields near Tower Bridge, from the northern end of London Bridge, and from Rood Lane EC3.

As viewed from Eastcheap/Philpot Lane (x2), and from the eastern end of Fenchurch Street. The last pic shows it at street level illustrating how truly unimaginative this building is – just compare it to the considered old architecture on the corner of Philpot Lane.

I wandered into Mincing Lane and found a relatively new pedestrian street opposite the Disneyland-style castle and prancing ponies of Minster Court (ugh!). 
Plantation Lane forms part of the huge Plantation Place development (but check out Google maps and zoom in to notice that the road name on the street sign has been erased – why?). The street narrows as it goes westwards towards Rood Lane. The only reason I didn't get agitated by being hemmed in by even more bullying glass is because I was distracted and intrigued by the pavement which is natural stone embedded with lines of names, words and phrases linking to London. Great to spot some wonderful old street names there ;-)

The pavement along Plantation Lane. At the Rood Lane end of the street I took the chance to capture some convergence images illustrating the diverse architecture. 

The City of London will never be finished. It is constantly evolving. Yet it seems to me that there has been a greater percentage of building/development per square metre in the last ten years than in the last 500. I appreciate that we live in a different world these days, with different needs and demands, but what I cannot fathom is the extent and size of these things, especially when so many old buildings stand empty and many finished buildings of similar size are not yet anywhere near reaching full occupancy.

Immediate plans for The City

Read more about this here.

David Edward's idea of what's in store for the future

Read more about the future here.

St Thomas Street – a wind tunnel of change

I recently met some friends for a drinks and nice food in a lovely pub in Bermondsey Street. Zig-zagging back towards London Bridge I entered St Thomas Street via Weston Street to find the junction completely blocked by construction works. Gone was the view of the road tunnel under the railway bridge, with hoardings and scaffolding erected half way along the road looking east. It's probably been like this for ages, but this not being an area I walk regularly, it was a bit of a shock for me. I stood and wondered and hoped if the lovely old brickwork that originally supported the bridge would remain once the work was completed.

Turning left into St Thomas Street I found that I was in a very forceful wind tunnel. It wasn't a particularly breezy evening so I can only assume that The Pointy Thing was causing this uncomfortable condition. I stood at the foot of the glass monstrosity and marvelled at its lack of architectural features. I still could find nothing to endear me to it; just rows and rows of angled plain glass windows separated by red lines and pale grey panels. Actually, it's all a bit mid-80s isn't it?!

On the western end of the St Thomas Street, stands the main tower of Guy's Hospital. This edifice has had a bit of a make-over recently – see the pics in the middle row of the top collection of images; the first were two taken in 2008. The tower dominates the lovely old main entrance to the hospital with its beautiful ironwork gates and gardens.
On the other side of the street, The Old Operating Theatre Museum & Garret and the adjacent georgian buildings make a ridiculous contrast with The Pointy Thing.
These days the powers that be are indeed saving certain buildings from 'progress' but it seems to be only those over 150 years old. Therefore, little three-storey, hand-made and brick-built gems get ring-fenced by enormous sheets of glass as architectural curiosities.

This area of London, from the south side of London Bridge down into Borough High Street, fanning left and right, is steeped in history yet much of it has been lost, mostly due to the swathe of land cleared when extending Guy's Hospital. Once an area for rowdy socialising, gaming, drinking and theatre, most of the drinking holes are long gone with only The George Inn remaining as an example of its kind. Hints of these old taverns can be glimpsed in the truncated narrow streets off the main road.

I have no concluding sentence.

Bankside _ a Southwark Patchwork

A few months ago I was walking to London Bridge from Lower Marsh via Southwark Street.

Just south of Tate Modern, at the junction of Hopton Street I stopped to stare across at the old alms houses which are surrounded on three sides by huge glass monsters*.
I stood and surveyed the view for quite a while and, without moving from that spot, I took a series of photographs to illustrate all the different types of buildings.
Metal, glass, UPVC, more glass, cladding, some Meccano clips and a bit of brick.
This montage of selected images makes the area look really interesting, but in reality the it resembles some kind of architectural testing ground and I don't like it one bit.

  *I am building up quite a collection of these saved, yet smothered gems, so watch this space.

Victoria Street – a glass corridor

As you will probably already know, I am not a fan of all these build-it-glass, build-it-fast, and build-it-high architecture that is sprouting up like a fungus all over this once great city.
Due to the homogenous design of these clip-together buildings I have been referring to this invasion of glass as 'The Dubaiification of London'
The latest victim of this spore is Victoria Street, SW1.
This vital route links The Palace of Westminster to Buckingham Palace Road and Victoria Station and, just like Cheapside* is in the process of being turned yet another glass river resembling a crevice in an ice flow.

Exiting Victoria Station one is confronted by the enormous upheaval of demolition and construction on a vast scale. Victoria Station itself is undergoing redevelopment, but works do not stop at the station concourse – there are other projects on the go at the same time and the whole of Victoria Street is a massive building site.
I photographed the area back in 2008, as shown above, and in July last year had access to see the huge hole made at the back of the The Victoria Palace Theatre. As you can see, Land Securities have very kindly kept the theatre but demolished a building of similar age that was to the right of it. The theatre will now sit like a tiny little child surrounded by huge shiny robots as per The Albert, a Victorian yellow brick public house that still survives on the corner of Buckingham Gate and is shown in the collection of images below.

What else is staying?
Little Ben has been removed – I assume he will return in the same position.
I notice the old Victoria Arcade has also been retained. I am hoping this is a permanent feature as I would hate to lose that beautiful (Doulton?) ceiling.  
But I am disappointed that the Overtons' sign on the building at the easter tip of the station concourse has been removed.
Westminster Cathedral's a bit old, so it's a good job we can't really see it. It can only be seen reflected in the glass windows of Victoria Street's upper floors, phew; that's a relief.
Compare and contrast... see the archive image above, bottom right, for how the Army and Navy Store used to look in 1905. Much of the rest of the street would have looked similar; imposing, solid and made to last... until someone with a wrecking ball and a love of mirrors came along.
I despair.
Read more about the plans for Victoria Street here.

*blimey, did I never get around to writing that one?

The Dubaiification of Nine Elms

Earlier this week, as part of a promotional walking tour around the Nine Elms, Battersea and Vauxhall area I got to see a the scale model of the plans.
My jaw dropped – I knew there was a lot of building work going on but I had no real concept how bullying and oppressive the scale would really be.
At the moment there is one very tall boring glass tube near Vauxhall station – you may recall that a helicopter crashed into it last year. Well, hold on to your hat – there are going to be plenty more tall buildings like that – pilots; take note!

The local councillors who were there, outlined the regeneration scheme and talked about iconic buildings and creating community (note: iconic buildings are not created; they become so, and community is not created; it evolves).
A skinny little grassy space will meander through the area intended to create environments for outdoor events, markets, fairs etc which will "link the town centres".

Towns? As far as I am aware 'Vauxhall town centre' is a train, tube and bus station. Where is the library, town hall, butchers and post office? It's got a nightlife though – there are over 20,000 people going there every weekend for the clubs and bars in the arches area. It's really 'Club Town', I suspect, due to the demise of the nightclub scene that used to be at Kings Cross.

I was not surprised to learn that retail spaces are planned for the ground floor of these new buildings, so expect to find all the same things you see everywhere else such as large coffee chains and express supermarkets with those annoying self-service check-outs. I doubt there will be any shops there selling normal things like groceries, haberdashery, hardware etc. Or pound shops for that matter.
I asked how much of this huge scheme had been sold already and got a woolly politician-style response. When I asked if the local community been involved in the plans, again, I got no real answer, just that there will be schools and health centres. Oh, so that's OK then.

The build is already underway, using glass from the US. I find it scary how so many enormous structures can be erected in one swathe. Nothing is allowed to evolve these days. What they are building here is, I think bigger than the City of London – a pop-up, slot-together 'Meccano' world.
But there are plenty of empty office spaces available in London, even in the pointy thing... so why build more? Just because there is a large piece of land that doesn't mean something big has to be built on it to fill the available space. It is beyond me how they can start with a blank canvas and yet still end up with a spider's web of outdoor areas that not that much different from high-rise housing estates of the 1970s.
And, regarding 'community', do the developers ever think to revisit the areas they have 'regenerated' 5, 10 or 15 years after to see if a community vibe has indeed taken hold? Has anyone been to the Isle of dogs lately?
It's so depressing.

If Ian Nairn was still alive today he would be as agitated by this as I am. Everything will end up looking like Dubai – a sea of glass and metal. Soon there won't be any details for me to find at all and the only things I will write about here will be rants about glass and loss.
For balance, here's Nine Elms' official site so you can hear their side.
Next week I'll write about plans for Battersea...

Actually, speaking of Ian Nairn... His series of programmes and his books about how he cared so much about the buildings around him just show that you don't have to be an architect to be interested in or have a view on or a love of architecture and how it makes us feel. 
If the BBC would like to make a similar series of programmes with a caring, opinionated, woman driving around the UK in an old Morris Minor... then look no further... I am here.  

For more of my posts in this vein London's please enter 'architecture' the search box top left.

That pointy thing called the Shard

Those of you who have read some of my previous posts will be aware that I am not a fan of that monstrous glass building at London Bridge. I think it's bullying "look at me; I'm really big!" architecture with no flair or design.
With all the empty office space available in Central London I am concerned about all the new build. The Dubaiification of London. And I am fed up with all the unnecessary competition between cities around the world to have the tallest "iconic" building. In most cases the measured height is, to me rather daft as it includes the aerials on the top. If I wear a stovepipe hat does that mean I am 6ft 2?!
A couple of weeks ago there was an article in The Times (Saturday July 6th) reporting that the Shard is failing in its attempt to sell the space within it. The Times reports that the 25 floors of office space are as empty as they were 12 months ago with only 10% being leased. The location is being cited as a reason; London Bridge is not The City, where other big buildings with silly names situtaed in the Square Mile are managing to sell their space.
The article goes on to quote Irvine Sellar, the Shard's developer, who seems to be cherry-picking his tenants. He cites this as a reason for the empty floors and rationalises, "...we are taking our time... we don't want to fill the Shard up with accountants or lawyers". He goes on, "...we are going to have asset managers, energy companies, lawyers and many more. We want a broad mix".
I very much doubt that is the reason at all. Location probably does play a part, but I think the lack of uptake is mostly down to the fantastically high maintenance charges; the window cleaning alone is estimated at £150,000 a year, plus rates on the empty offices need to be paid for before they are leased, and electricity has to be block-purchased in advance. Cleaning and security for the building could cost as much as £9million a year once it is fully let.
So, they must have thought long and hard about how to bring in big dosh for  little outlay.... hmmm... let's think... Yes! viewing platforms. Incidentally, I don't like the word "platforms" in this instance. Bad word. Why not galleries, floors or levels?
They call it "The View" and on Saturday 13th July I went to see it for myself. My very generous friend paid £24.99 each for four of us. TWENTY FIVE QUID!!! That's the pre-booking price. If you buy your ticket on the day it goes up to £29.99.
OK here goes... hold on to your hat... this is what you get for £25...

• On arriving we were informed that there are no toilets on the viewing levels and were directed to the ones adjacent to the booking hall; an area that is awash with CGI on large screens and colourful technology. Opening the door to the Ladies we entered a service corridor with whitewashed breeze block walls. There were loose wires and duct-taped pipes. Inside it was obvious that this was usually used by staff or gym users as we saw lockers in there. A temporary sign on A4 copy paper apologised, explaining that new toilets are currently being built for Guest use. This building has been open to the public for almost a year now and they haven't made the toilets? Is £25 a reduced rate due to this? Or, will the price go up when the toilets are finally open? 
• So, why are there no toilets on or near the viewing levels? What happens if someone is taken short or feels dizzy/sick? Are people expected to get in the lift again, go all the way through the gift shop, past the booking desks and relieve themselves only to find that they (probably) aren't allowed back up again? I am sure there must be toilet facilities on the restaurant floors but viewing-only plebs aren't allowed to mix with high-paying foodies. 
• There is nowhere to sit on the viewing platforms. Not everyone is happy standing, or sitting on the floor. Many people, especially those who are tired, dizzy, disabled, old or infirm would benefit from some simple benches where they can rest for 5 minutes as in art galleries. There is ample space all around the inner wood-panelled wall where these could be added. I believe there are two reasons for their non-existence: 1) it stops people staying up there too long, and, 2) the Shard was never designed to have viewing platforms in the first instance or they would have designed it better. 
• So it ought to go without saying that there are no refreshment opportunities up there either.
• Why no glass floors? A huge opportunity has been missed here. Especially as the building is clad in glass. There are perfect places in recessed areas where glass-floored panels could have been included (such as in Auckland's Sky Tower in and many others). But, again, I think this is for the same reasons as the lack of seating.
• Don't look up because the ceilings of the viewing platforms are an ugly mess. There are hanging wires and pipes clad in silver foil with stickers on them, plus metal fixings and plates that I think ought not to be seen. It looks so out of place with the simplicity of the wooden floors and walls. 
• When we were there we commented how daft it was that the only way to identify the buildings in the distance was to use one of the computerised viewing machines. We wondered why they hadn't put information about the major landmarks onto the windows or on a rail in front of us. It wasn't until I got home and looked at my photos that I noticed that there is a legend there, but it is situated above everyone's heads!! How utterly daft. You have to step back from the glass to see it. Another afterthought?
• On the ground floor, on the way in between security checks and the lift you can have your photo taken against a simulated image of the Shard. As per The London DUNG-eon and all other rip-off tourist attractions of this kind, the prints are an extra charge. Did I mention the tickets for The View at Shard are £25?
• The lifts are rather disappointing. Considering they are being touted for their high speed you don't get a visual sense of this at all. You stand there in a dark blue box looking up at some computer generated whizzy lines on the ceiling. Couldn't they have filmed the journey to the top of the Shard from the roof of the lift and put that up on the ceiling so we had the feeling of heading skyward? This seems too obvious a trick to have missed.

To conclude, I believe due to their lack of facilities, the viewing platforms are an afterthought to the conceived design of the building. I think the developers really thought companies would have been snapping up the office space off-plan before the building was completed.
The exorbitant minimum ticket price of £24.99 for what is just a trip in two lifts with a view at the top and not a lot else, is to help with those cleaning bills.
Mind you, I suppose comparing time:money it does work out cheaper than a trip on the London Eye (£17.28 for half an hour) because you can stay up in the Shard as long as you want. I am not sure if you can take your own food and drink up there, but don't take too much because the toilets are 69/72 floors away (they include the landings on the stairs as two floors!)
Oh, one more thing that nags at me; the location is called London Bridge Quarter. A quarter of what? Does the Shard take up 25% of the whole of the whole London Bridge area? What are the other three quarters called? Answers here please.

"This article has been written to recognise the author's contribution to travel and tourism by Avis Car Hire on the A-List Awards 2013".

City of Glass

I recently posted about The Developing City; an excellent exhibition about the changing architecture in the City of London.
It was split into three sections; the past, present and future. The earlier panels were full of great info and wonderful photos of the City in past centuries. It was interesting to see and mentally compare the changes over time. I was especially intrigued by Cheapside, which has always been a shopping street. However, in the past it was lined with one-off shops selling all kinds of things, but of late it's become just another bland road plate glass shops selling coffee, clothes and phones. The church of St Mary-Le-Bow now looks squashed, out of place and off-scale compared to the buildings either side of it.
London, you see, is being over-run by plate glass.

Old buildings are being torn down and replaced with HUGE glass monstrosities that, despite their shapes and silly 'friendly' names, all end up looking the same. They are, in my view, just glass towers squidged and skewed into strange shapes; vertical glasshouses with no detailing or interesting features except they can reflect a grey London sky or a better better building.
Our wonderful City is going to end up looking all new and shiny and bland like Dubai; the Dubaiification of London will soon be complete.
In a few instances listed London façades have been retained; their insides have been gutted and replaced with modern offices, walkways and glass atriums. Or extensions have been added that resemble lean-tos or green houses. Perhaps the powers that be are considering growing tomatoes and runner beans in these places if one day all the computers crash? I am now also gutted, but for a different reason – that although I do like the renovated space inside Unilever House, I didn't see it prior to its re-fit.
Back to the exhib... The 'present' section showed a collection of 80 images that they called 'the best new buildings and public spaces built in the City since 1985'. Looking at these images I could only make out a few structures that were not predominately glass, including The Millennium Bridge and terracotta-clad building in Bishops Square, Spitalfields. The plans for the immediate future show the horrible intensity of tall glass buildings that will be going up during the next decade.
The last part of the exhibition showed some visions of the future that makes it look like the Thames will become some kind of water garden for Teletubbies. Another similar idea for Smithfield had to be seen to be believed.
I cannot be alone with my concerns. One only has to see the queues on Open House Weekend for all the old and preserved buildings such as The Livery Halls, churches and old banking rooms, to understand that a lot of us appreciate intricate mosaics, and hand-carved stone and wood.
Looking forward, I do not see a logical reason to build (any more of) these biggest/tallest/pointiest 'iconic' structures (for iconic, read 'bullying'). They can't simply be show-off statement pieces – there must be more to it.
It can't be that London has a dearth of office space because you only have to look up to the empty top floors around, for instance, Oxford Street and Piccadilly, or wander the streets behind Broadgate).  So, I conclude that there must a financial gain to be made constructing big glass show-off towers.
I rather suspect that a huge tax dodge, or similar, can be achieved by off-setting building costs against profits. Or something. After all these big shiny things aren't cheap you know.
Or perhaps, in addition to growing those vegetables, these megabucks businesses are just trying to keep window cleaners in employment?
The pics in the montage above come from my 'Ugly Beautiful' folder on Flickr. Here's a similar, but shorter post from three years ago on the same subject.

A happy coincidence: 
I wrote most of the above yesterday, intending to rewrite bits of it today. Last night, I sat down to watch the 4th in the series of 'The Shock of The New', a series of programmes made in 1980 by the erudite and much-missed Robert Hughes. 
This episode, entitled 'Trouble in Utopia', was about modern architecture. Robert put forward his views about the idealist attempts to turn major cities, that have endured centuries of history including World wars, into minimalist Utopias, devoid of life or stimulation. He pointed out that the "inhuman" and "absurd" towers of glass just didn't work; that "nothing dates quicker than people's visions of the future". He showed that by the 80s areas of Brasilia, built in the early 60s, were already falling to pieces. Chandigarh too, Le Corbusier's personal vision of Utopia in India, commissioned by Nehru to reflect the nation's modern, progressive outlook, was also a shadow of its former self. 
He also pointed out that none of the modern buildings of the 80s displayed any kind of ornamentation comparable to Chicago's Sullivan building, an early example of high-rise steel construction. (They still don't... they are just plain unadorned plate glass.)
He (wrongly) concluded the episode by predicting the death of the Utopian style of architecture, saying it just doesn't work. I'd love to have heard what he thinks of London now, and the plans for its future.
See the programme here.
In conclusion, I think many architects such as, for example, Le Corbusier and Renzo Piano, may occasionally have some brilliant ideas, but are unable to see further than their own noses. These bullying, narrow-minded, control freaks are being allowed (commissioned by sychophants?) to alter our cities too drastically, and too quickly. 
Stop, stop stop. Or at least, just slow down.
There! I've said it!