Feature

The Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and St.Paul’s Cathedral: these are the images, the icons that we immediately associate with London. Yet while the city has a long, important and exciting history, that very history continues. London is very much alive and its constantly updated architectural landscape is a source of wonder, controversy and bafflement. Seeing as any visit to the capital is already likely to take in all the above-mentioned landmarks, we’ve compiled a mini-guide to the modern, the weird and the wonderful. The alternative icons of London, if you like.         

30 St. Mary Axe “The Gherkin”

One of the most recent – and controversial – additions to the capital’s skyline, Norman Foster’s 180 metre high office building has already become an iconic symbol. While the work is officially known by its address, it’s commonly referred to as the Gherkin due to its unusual shape. Also more than a little phallic in form, it has been nicknamed the Towering Innuendo, the Glass Dildo and the Crystal Phallus by some Londoners. The structure’s shiny curves and semi-spiralling patterns can easily be seen from afar, but it’s worth getting up a little closer to witness how they contrast with the more traditional architecture of much of the financial district.    
                
The Barbican Complex

A vision of the future from the past, the Barbican is one of Britain’s most bizarre architectural achievements. Loved and loathed in equal measures, this blocky Brutalist complex seems like a zone from a fictional city and is completely at odds with its surroundings. Built amid financial and commercial institutions in a heavily war-damaged area of the capital, the development is utterly unique. Just the idea of housing Europe’s largest performing arts centre in amongst the terrace blocks and towers of a residential estate gives the Barbican an otherworldly edge. The estate itself was opened in 1969 and the step-pyramid Barbican Centre was completed in 1982, but the whole project retains an astonishing level of consistency. With much of it above street level, its solid concrete bulk, internal bridges and maze of confusing walkways conjure up the feeling of a cold war spy movie scene.

Battersea Power Station

If there’s one building that Londoners are almost universally fond of, it’s this defunct electricity generating facility on the Thames. Is it because it’s a symbol of a bygone age, of a mighty (pre-green) industrial capital? Maybe, but its cache of cool was already being built up via pop culture references even while its coal fires were still burning. The sturdy walls and colossal chimneys of Europe’s largest brick building were most notably featured on the cover of Pink Floyd’s 1977 album Animals and have continued to inspire all manner of creative types. In recent years it has been used as a location for hit movies including Children Of Men and The Dark Knight. The site is still occasionally used to provide a dramatic backdrop for cultural events and current plans are set to revitalise it as the world’s first carbon-neutral arts amphitheatre. Genuinely awesome.

St. Pancras Station

The regenerated St Pancras looks like the kind of place that could transport you forward or backward in time (and that’s without using platform 9¾). The original Victorian structure of the arch roofed train shed has always managed to appear simultaneously classic and contemporary.  Now extended to accommodate the high-speed Eurostar link, the glass-panelled structure is a marvel to behold - as the awestruck pose on the station’s sculpture of poet John Betjeman, who saved the station in the 1960s, testifies. That’s not to mention the magnificent, gleaming new façade and the shiny bars and shops that nestle between the original brickwork. And there’s nowhere cooler or more romantic to meet than under the restored station clock.    

Tate Modern

Perhaps marginally less iconic than its sister down the river in Battersea, Bankside Power Station is still one of the South Bank’s most striking features. Out of commission since 1981 and in danger of being demolished in the early-nineties, the building was saved in 1994 and has gone on to become one of the world’s finest modern art spaces. The conversion by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron added a glass roof extension that beautifully accentuates its austere brickwork and mighty central chimney. Inside, the cavernous, five-storey Turbine Hall, which once housed the station’s generators, thankfully remains and now plays host to specially commissioned large contemporary works that change yearly. The grassy area in front of the building provides an ideal picnic/rest stop and leads almost directly to the magnificent (and no longer wobbly) Millenium Bridge, which connects the South Bank to the City and offers the perfect view of St.Paul’s Cathedral on the other side.   

Millennium Dome / The 02

The former home of the huge, expensive (and rather coolly received) Millennium Experience,  the building that now calls itself The O2 has already had something of a chequered past. Closed for the best part of six years, the dome was a political embarrassment and the subject of a number of ambitious but fruitless plans. Though it now houses an entertainment centre, it’s the breathtaking size and strange construction that really warrant a close look. The dome’s vast white weatherproof plastic canopy stretches to cover a 1KM circumference, punctuated by twelve 100-metre high supports. It may look like a deformed giant umbrella or a pie with lots of yellow forks stuck in it, but there’s a concept in there. Situated on the Greenwich Peninsula of the Thames, the shape and structure is linked to Greenwich Mean Time. The building’s diameter measures 365 metres, representing the days of the year and the support towers’ even intervals symbolise a clock face.

Lloyd's Building

Given that it’s just the home of an insurance institution, it’s lucky that much of what’s interesting about this City Of London structure is on the outside. Sometimes referred to as the Inside-Out Building, Richard Rogers’s vision for Lloyd’s followed his earlier design for Paris’s Pompidou Centre, placing all the pipes, lifts and staircases on the building’s exterior. Once likened by the BBC’s David Dimbleby to a building on a life support system, it certainly wears its modernism on its sleeve. A work of unparalleled genius or a giant coffee machine: the three achingly futuristic main towers and their “attachments” simply can’t fail to provoke a reaction. And the retention of the original construction cranes for “decoration” purposes is surely the icing (or the candles) on the architectural cake. Another interesting site, Norman Foster’s step-like Willis Building resides just across Lime St.

City Hall 

Just along the river from the original picture postcard London icon, Tower Bridge, lies one of London’s newest and strangest erections. Opened in 2002, City Hall is another of (in)famous Brit architect Norman Foster’s efforts towards the establishment of London as a premier home for vanguard modernist structures. The two mayors of London who have been based at the building have dubbed it “The Onion” (Boris Johnson) and the “glass testicle” (Ken Livingstone) - and they’re right in the sense that it has a very “organic” feel, but it’s more exciting than that. In fact, the eight circular glass floors with their bulging front and ridged back call to mind more a shell or exoskeleton. It’s as if an enormous insect has buried its head in the concrete, leaving its bulbous behind sticking out. We think so anyway.


Southbank Centre     

The focal point of the arts on the South Bank of the Thames, the Southbank Centre’s ever evolving story began with the construction of the Royal Festival Hall in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain. A stately but simple “egg in a box”, as architect Leslie Martin called it, the RFH has remained iconic while accommodating Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Hayward Gallery, their linking walkways and its own refurbishments over the years. Joining it in the sixties, its Brutalist neighbours were built with a contrasting aesthetic, using numerous separate puzzle-piece blocks, in order not to detract from its straightforward majesty. And no matter what high art events are happening inside, the complex defiantly remains an open, people’s space. The RFH’s recent expansion and the de-cluttering of its open foyers make it even more wander-friendly and the hard slabs and pillars of QEH’s Undercroft have long made it a Mecca for skateboarders and graffiti artists.

For more information on London, visit our destination guide

Lloyd's Building

Given that it’s just the home of an insurance institution, it’s lucky that much of what’s interesting about this City Of London structure is on the outside. Sometimes referred to as the Inside-Out Building, Richard Rogers’s vision for Lloyd’s followed his earlier design for Paris’s Pompidou Centre, placing all the pipes, lifts and staircases on the building’s exterior. Once likened by the BBC’s David Dimbleby to a building on a life support system, it certainly wears its modernism on its sleeve. A work of unparalleled genius or a giant coffee machine: the three achingly futuristic main towers and their “attachments” simply can’t fail to provoke a reaction. And the retention of the original construction cranes for “decoration” purposes is surely the icing on the architectural cake. Another interesting site, Norman Foster’s step-like Willis Building resides just across Lime St.    

City Hall 

Just along the river from the original picture postcard London icon, Tower Bridge, lies one of London’s newest and strangest erections. Opened in 2002, City Hall is another of (in)famous Brit architect Norman Foster’s efforts towards the establishment of London as a premier home for vanguard modernist structures. The two mayors of London who have been based at the building have dubbed it “The Onion” (Boris Johnson) and the “glass testicle” (Ken Livingstone) - and they’re right in the sense that it has a very “organic” feel, but it’s more exciting than that. In fact, the eight circular glass floors with their bulging front and ridged back call to mind more a shell or exoskeleton. It’s as if an enormous insect has buried its head in the concrete, leaving its bulbous behind sticking out. We think so anyway.


Southbank Centre     

The focal point of the arts on the South Bank of the Thames, the Southbank Centre’s ever evolving story began with the construction of the Royal Festival Hall in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain. A stately but simple “egg in a box”, as architect Leslie Martin called it, the RFH has remained iconic while accommodating Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Hayward Gallery, their linking walkways and its own refurbishments over the years. Joining it in the sixties, its Brutalist neighbours were built with a contrasting aesthetic, using numerous separate puzzle-piece blocks, in order not to detract from its straightforward majesty. And no matter what high art events are happening inside, the complex defiantly remains an open, people’s space. The RFH’s recent expansion and the de-cluttering of its open foyers make it even more wander-friendly and the hard slabs and pillars of QEH’s Undercroft have long made it a Mecca for skateboarders and graffiti artists.