Why Do London Skyscrapers Look Like That?

Architectural Digest

Today, AD joins architect Nick Potts in London to explore the city’s unique skyline. From the Gherkin to the Cheesegrater and the Walkie Talkie, these skyscrapers are as iconic for their nicknames as they are for their bold, unusual designs. But what gives London’s skyline its distinctive character? Join Potts as he explores how the UK capital’s historic layout, protected sightlines, and strict planning laws have shaped the city’s tallest buildings and how architects navigate complex zoning rules to create skyscrapers that are both functional and expressive, resulting in one of the most recognizable skylines in the world.

Transcript

00:00London has some seriously odd-looking skyscrapers with some very unserious nicknames.

00:06The Gherkin, the Scalpel, the Can of Ham, the Cheese Grater, the Walkie Talkie.

00:12But buildings this large and this expensive, in the heart of one of the world's most important

00:16cities, don't just happen by accident.

00:19So how did these skyscrapers end up with such unique designs?

00:23I'm Nick Potts, I'm an architect, and today we're taking a walking tour of London's

00:27most interesting skyscrapers.

00:36To understand why these buildings look the way they do, first we need to understand three

00:39major factors about building in the city of London.

00:42First, unlike some other major cities around the world, London doesn't have a uniform street

00:46grid.

00:47Each lot has a unique shape and unique dimensions.

00:49Some lots are rectangular, others are triangular, some are just bizarre.

00:54Secondly, in addition to, or maybe because of these irregular lot sizes, what gets built

00:59on them is subject to a huge amount of negotiation.

01:01In a city like New York, there's a defined buildable envelope that regulates the bulk,

01:06the shape, the size, the height of new buildings.

01:08London doesn't have those sorts of rules, so every new large building that impacts the

01:12skyline is up to negotiation.

01:14And the third factor is that within the square mile of the city of London, there were no skyscrapers

01:20until the 1980s.

01:22Before the 1980s, nothing this tall could legally be built in the historic square mile of the

01:27center of London.

01:28We are right over the center of the hub of the world, the city of London.

01:33No view of London would be complete without a view of Sir Christopher Wren's masterwork,

01:39Historic Old St. Paul's.

01:42These buildings only started going up when those laws were changed, and actually the political

01:47organization of the city changed to enable it.

01:49And so for the first time, with the creation of the Greater London Authority, London had

01:53something it hadn't had before, a mayor.

01:56And given the trend towards globalization that was occurring, the new London plan saw the opportunity

02:02to cement London as a global financial capital with a downtown.

02:07So in the London plan, there's no clear definition about what a tall building is, only a somewhat

02:12puzzling statement about the higher the building, the greater the scrutiny.

02:16But they did, however, create a framework of five major tenants that would feed into the

02:20approval process for any major tall building.

02:23The functional impact, the visual impact, the cumulative impact, the environmental impact,

02:29and public access.

02:37This is 30 St. Mary Acts, known to many as the Gherkin because it looks like, well, a pickle.

02:43But there's actually a good reason why it looks like this.

02:45This was designed by Lord Norman Foster and completed in 2001.

02:49This was designed to be a symbol of sustainability.

02:52And 30 St. Mary Acts really leaned into the idea of environmental impact as the path towards

02:58approval, simply through its formal massing.

03:01The rounded shape, the curves minimize wind at the base of the building, which was a really

03:06crucial thing for the regulatory agency to get behind.

03:10And the second of these was really about the performance of the building in terms of environmental

03:15responsibility and trying to minimize the use of fossil fuels to heat and air condition in

03:20the way that you typically would in a glass-enclosed rectangular skyscraper.

03:23So, if you look at the black stripes running up the building, within those are multi-story

03:28atriums.

03:29And these were meant to allow airflow to move up and through the building, almost like a

03:33chimney.

03:34And in addition to that, there were windows that were designed to open and shut to allow

03:39air to move in and through the building, minimize the use of air conditioning.

03:44Also, if you look closely at the building, you don't see any louvers, and they achieved

03:48this shape and this sleekness by actually moving the cooling towers and the heating plant

03:53to an adjacent six-story building.

03:55So, even though the building communicates sustainability, its performance is still very much traditional

04:02and just hidden.

04:09This is the Leidenhall building, which some people have taken to calling the cheese grater.

04:14This building was designed by Richard Rogers & Partners and was completed in 2013.

04:18The design here might look like an odd choice, but it makes a lot more sense if you look at

04:22it up against another building.

04:23St. Paul's Cathedral is just a few blocks away, and the shape of the Leidenhall building

04:28is actually a gesture of respect looking back towards St. Paul's Cathedral.

04:33So thinking back to the approval guidelines in the City of London for a tall building, the

04:37visual impact is one of these core tenets, and this is the one that the Leidenhall building

04:41really leaned into.

04:43Across London there are these protected view corridors, essentially making sure that St.

04:47Paul's is visible from various vantage points across the entire metropolitan region, and

04:53these view corridors, in the approval for any tall building, need to be kept clear both

04:57in front and behind.

04:58Working on top of London's tall buildings is not the most comfortable of jobs.

05:04But when the sun shines and the air is clear, the views around and below are well worth compensation.

05:10Looking across London, St. Paul stands out with proud dignity.

05:13So the Leidenhall building, by leaning away from one of these protected viewpoints, freed

05:20up one of these views, and it enabled the building to be quite tall.

05:23And there's also a somewhat interesting parallel with this building and another building by Richard

05:28Rogers just a few streets away, the Lloyds of London headquarters, which is almost an extreme

05:34version of an inside-out building with exterior stairs and a fairly wacky exterior shape.

05:40Leidenhall building kind of simplifies.

05:42It's almost like a mature version of the same sort of idea.

05:45You have your very functional office floor plate with all of the mechanical guts stuck on the

05:50outside of it.

05:51Over here, it's only on one side to essentially maximize the efficiency of these rectangular floor

05:56plates, as opposed to Lloyds, which is a little bit more artful and composed with the distribution

06:02of stairs and ductwork.

06:04And this is a very British through-line of modern architecture, going back to, you could even

06:08say the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park in 1851, which was this exploration of metal and glass

06:15and this sort of techno-futurism of British architecture that that building really started.

06:22But while the cheese grater gets smaller towards the top to preserve these historic sight lines,

06:27the next building we're going to look at turns that idea upside down, literally.

06:32Behind me is 20 Fenchurch, which some people have taken to calling the walkie-talkie.

06:41And this is one of the only skyscrapers in London that you can actually visit the top

06:44of for free.

06:45That is, if you can get a ticket.

06:47The building was designed by Raphael Vignoli, it was completed in 2015.

06:51And if you notice, the top of this building is larger than the base, which is quite unusual

06:56for a tall building.

06:57But these curves are not about preserving historic views.

07:00This design is actually a clever way to create a public space within the footprint of a private

07:04building.

07:05In the London plan, there's actually a requirement for public space.

07:09And the magic here is that they've managed to create a total area of public space that's

07:12actually bigger than the lot that it's built on.

07:14Directly underneath the almost dome at the top of the building is a public park.

07:18So it's actually interesting that the top of the building is the size of the lot and the

07:22bottom is smaller.

07:23It's the opposite of what we're used to when we think of tall buildings that get smaller

07:27as you ascend.

07:29And because of this essentially trick of geometry, there's about one and a half times the amount

07:34of public space that the lot even contains.

07:37One of the other aspects of the visual metrics for any tall building getting permission for

07:43the London plan is actually design quality.

07:46Because there wasn't a set visual metric that this was assessed against, what the developers

07:50ended up doing is actually hired other famous architects, including Jean Nouvel, who did not

07:56design this building, to essentially write an ode of praise towards the building design saying

08:00this would be a contribution to generations of Londoners to build this quote unquote masterpiece.

08:06And this is just a small bit of what it takes to build a skyscraper in a city like London.

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