The architect who gave Paris its modernist landmark Pompidou Center in the 1970s now wants to build Europe’s tallest office block. At 310 meters (1,020 feet), the London Bridge Tower, a tapering pyramid of glass and steel planned for beside the Thames, would dwarf any of central London’s few skyscrapers. “This isn’t just some mundane skyscraper,” says Irvine Sellar, the developer behind the project. “It’s potentially a great piece of sculpture.”
Great sculpture or not, gaining approval from the planners looks set to generate controversy on a matching scale. To the dismay of traditionalists, Piano’s proposal is just the latest in a recent series of skyline busters, designed by a clutch of big-name architects. Richard Rogers, who collaborated with Piano on the Pompidou Center, wants to build a 43-story block close to Paddington station. Norman Foster has already won approval for a striking 180-meter (600-foot) tower nicknamed “the Gherkin,” near the center of the City, the capital’s financial district. Planners’ maps show a scattering of other high-risers across the capital. “The drive to make London a city of towers is becoming a stampede,” according to architectural critic Marcus Binney.
The towers stand for a break with the past. For decades, a loosely enforced government policy deliberately kept London a low-rise city, like Paris, Rome or Madrid. The first building to reach higher than St Paul’s Cathedral-a mere 365 feet-didn’t appear until 1965, when restrictions were waived to permit the construction of the Hilton Hotel overlooking Hyde Park. Since then the authorities have generally respected a 100-meter (330-foot) limit, permitting only the occasional exception. The iconic views of the city-from the Thames or the parks-have been largely spared the intrusion of the loftiest new towers.
But commercial pressures may be prompting a change of heart. The City is facing a serious challenge to its preeminence as Europe’s financial center. Frankfurt, home of the new European Central Bank, still trails far behind-London provides a base for more than 450 international banks-but the German city makes no secret of its long-term ambitions. And the Corporation of London, the local authority that controls the City, is rattled. Says Lord Mayor David Howard: “The City is very short of space and we have got to build more. This is the place where people want to be: therefore we have to help them to be here.”
The only direction to expand is upward. The City itself, a warren of narrow streets, measures just one mile square. Besides, today’s office workers want the light and space that normally go with height. “Towers are just much nicer places to work,” says Angus Goswell of the property company, Healey & Baker. “Even in bad markets they always let well.”
Such talk troubles the conservationists, who worry that the Corporation is ready to sanction a thicket of new towers. They claim the City authorities are worried not only by the Frankfurt threat but also by the steady outflow of banks to the swank new facilities out in London’s former docklands, two miles to the east. That’s already the site of the 243-meter (800-foot) Canary Wharf Tower-currently the city’s tallest building-which is soon to be flanked by two more megaliths. “What we are seeing is macho competition with Canary Wharf of the most absurd kind,” says Matthew Saunders of the Ancient Monuments Society. What’s needed, he says, is a public debate on the merits of building high anywhere in the city center.
One case now looks set to focus the debate. In the face of opposition from the conservation lobby and English Heritage, the official body that advises the government, the Corporation has approved plans from the U.S. Heron property company for a 183-meter (600-foot) block just east of St Paul’s. “It’s a very exciting building,” says Matthew Saunders, “but its location is disastrous. There is no logic in having more tower blocks in a crowded city.” The government agrees. Last month it used its powers to overrule the Corporation and to order a public inquiry. High-rise or not, it should produce a long-view policy for London.
