In Richmond Park, a huge royal park and nature reserve in west London,
there's this odd avenue of trees.
And in central London there is this: the Cheesegrater, an odd wedge-shaped tower block. Why build
it that shape, when you could keep it the same all the way up and about double the amount
of space you can rent out?
Well, to explain, I've come here: this is the New London Model, in the NLA Galleries
at The Building Centre. It is a massive, interactive scale model of London, showing all sorts of
data about the city -- including these.
These are protected views, or sightlines. Back in the 1930s, London started to get what
were, for the time, tall buildings like Unilever House -- now it seems tiny, only a few storeys
high, but it was enough to start blocking some views of St Paul's Cathedral -- which
was the tallest building in the city, and had been for centuries. It was only beaten
by the Post Office Tower in 1962. There was a public outcry about this, and so, the local
authorities have protected certain views of the cathedral, and of the Houses of Parliament.
That avenue of trees in Richmond Park points straight at St Paul's Cathedral -- even though
you can only really see St Paul's through a telescope, you will always be able to see
St Paul's, through a telescope, from there. There'll never be a tall building to block
the view. And crucially, no-one's allowed to build something behind St Paul's either,
because that'd spoil the view just as badly. Heck, you can't build anything tall near St
Paul's, because it'd ruin the view from the riverside: the One New Change shopping centre,
next door to St Paul's, is very carefully designed to get around all these restrictions.
Have a look at the Shard, London's tallest building: it's bounded left and right by these
protected views, but it sits just outside them.
And all that explains the Cheesegrater's odd shape: the view of St Paul's from Fleet Street
had to be protected, and the tower 'leaning back' was enough to satisfy the planning committee.
So the question remains: how long can it last? London is going vertical, steadily, as a housing
bubble and foreign investment pushes rents and building ever higher. In a hundred years,
when this model's been replaced by some futuristic hologram: will you still be able to stand
in Richmond Park and see St Paul's?
Or will money have won out over history?
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