A concrete core is rapidly rising in the City of London, crowned with the slogan "the building with more up top". This is a reference to the "sky garden", a glass enclosure planned for its 160-metre summit. The panoramic experience is expected to open to the public in 2014 and will be a welcome addition for sightseers to the City. Known as the Walkie Talkie because of its curved shape, becoming wider toward the top like a big bent box, 20 Fenchurch Street has been designed by the New York-based Uruguyan Rafael Viñoly.
The Walkie Talkie is just one of several innovative skyscrapers that are about to dramatically change a small corner of the City, between Bishopsgate and the Tower of London. When completed over the next two years they will create a skyline of infinite variety.
The Tallest Skyscraper in the City
Behind the Walkie Talkie, the soon-to-be tallest skyscraper in the City is starting rapidly to rise. Dubbed The Pinnacle or The Helter Skelter, Bishopsgate Tower will be a twisting, 72-storey glass edifice with triple glazed 'snakeskin' facade. The architects are Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates of New York who designed the nearby glass block of Heron Tower (110 Bishopsgate), the tallest in the City when it opened in March 2011.
A few yards away, The Leadenhall Tower, known as The Cheese Grater, is starting its journey heavenwards. This 42-storey block was given the go-ahead last October after backing from a Canadian pension fund, Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System. It has been designed by Richard Rogers, architect of the Lloyd's building opposite, which gave the City its first taste of modern architecture 25 years ago.
Rising from Out of the Past
These developments have started with massive craters being excavated alongside ancient, protected churches and commercial buildings, sometimes coming into contact with the Roman and medieval city beneath. For the 172 metre skyscraper named after its address, 100 Bishopsgate, a vast hole has opened up beside the tiny 15th-century church of St Ethelberga, which was rebuilt as a peace centre after an IRA bomb struck in 1993. The IRA is also indirectly responsible for Norman Foster's landmark Gerkin, just around the corner at 30 St Mary Axe. In 1992 a bomb destroyed The Baltic Exchange, a listed building previously on the site.
The new skyscrapers are due for completion by 2014. They will add to the motley skyline best seen from London Bridge or the opposite bank of the Thames. From the left, across a distance of around 800 yards, the eye sweeps from the Egyptian Art Deco of Adelaide House (the tallest office block in the city, with a golf course on the roof, when built in 1925), Christopher Wren's Monument (1677, the tallest free-standing stone column in the world) past the recent black glass building occupied by Express Newspapers, Old Billingsgate Market (1875), and the elegant stone frontage of Robert Smirke's Custom House (1825) to the spire of Samuel Pepys' St Olav and the medieval Tower of London. Just behind are modern rooftops: Lloyd's arched roof, the Art Deco lines of One America (RHWL, 1990) and the crazy pink Gothic of Minster Court (GMW Partnership, 1991).
View from the Shard
The riverside view provides a clue as to how Britain's two top architects chose their titles: Richard Rogers as Lord Rogers of Riverside and Norman Foster as Lord Foster of Thames Bank.
At London Bridge on the south bank, the 310-metre Shard is nearing completion. This is the tallest building in Europe and when its Observatory on 68th to 72nd floors opens in February 2013, it will look down on the Walkie Talkie, Helter Skelter and Cheese Grater and provide an even more stunning view of the eclectic mix of new and old buildings in the financial City.
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