The Ruin of London
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ค. 2015
- London's skyline was for decades protected by regulations governing the heights of buildings in the historic core. These regulations have now been torn up, and an unprecedented tower building-boom has been unleashed. Please subscribe here: tinyurl.com/o28mut7
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My Grandfather spent his working life at the GLC establishing & maintaining London's sight lines. Without his tireless efforts St.Paul's would have disappeared from the London skyline in nearly every direction decades ago. It broke his heart seeing so much of his legacy undone within his lifetime but at least he held back the tide for long enough that another generation could be inspired by the beauty of London's vistas.
"London is not New York." - David Allen Thomas Christy (Architect & Town Planner).
I wish I knew more of the specifics, unfortunately my understanding is purely anecdotal. Feeling that it had amounted to very little in the end, he rarely spoke about his work and I (being young and utterly occupied by the up keep of the vegetable garden and endless furniture building / repairs he did) never thought to ask until it was too late and his encyclopaedic knowledge of nearly everything had been consumed by Alzheimer's.
After his passing, however, we received an overwhelming number of letters of condolence from his staff at the GLC and various other people he worked with. Many referred to specific things he had said and done at critical moments in meetings, the respect he commanded and the difference they felt he made to London and to their lives. I can only find one specific reference to his work online:
"These standards remained GLC policy until its demise in 1986 and continued to influence planning decisions through the end of the eighties. David Christy, GLC assistant chief planner, argued strongly that the Council's policy resulted in proposals for lower buildings than would otherwise have been the case. Over the years, there were, in fact, a number of rejections because of height."(corbu2.caed.kent.edu/architronic/v5n2/v5n2.06ref.html#fn11 see Ref. 11).
I will speak with my mum and get back to you as soon as I can.
I do know that he was the first person to refer to the Gravelly Hill Interchange as Spaghetti Junction whilst being driven through it with a group of journalists at the opening.
Thank you. I'm sure it would mean a great deal to him to see that there are still people out there willing to champion the cause that was so dear to his heart.
madebyboys I love your vocabulary! :D
madebyboys Very interesting.
In the words of Stewart Lee
"As a piece of architectural design, it's abysmal.
But as a metaphor for the current state of affairs, it's magnificent"
But still looks like shit... Big words don’t and won’t ever change that fact. 🤪
If anyone's knows any Parisians then you'll know just how much they hate the Montparnasse Tower and see it as a scar on their beautiful cities skyline. Its a common joke that the only good view of the tower is when your inside it because then you cannot see it.
It looks like a very isolated domino.
I loved the Montparnasse tower.
Still like it. It's the architectural equivalent of a classic Citroen Maserati.
@@DancingDeity yeah considering how much they hated the eiffel towers I can't imagine a new, worse tower went down well
Yes. Wasn’t it the same about the Eiffel tower?
it is not the skyscraper i dislike, it's the sudden pop-ups of skyscrapers where they shouldn't be. The surrounding houses should create a height slope around the highest building so that it doesn't look like the skyscrapers were placed there by mistake.
***** In Italy there is a law for this, it's called "piano regolatore dell'edilizia" which roughly translates to "building regulations plan". It specifically asserts that you can't build "outlier" buildings: if a neighborhood has 5 storeys buidings than you can only vary so much from the average.
Wouldn't it help to have a relatively small area stacked with skyscrapers away from central London. You'll preserve the historically beautiful buildings, remove some lessor buildings, and create more housing for London's ever growing population.
Master in Moscow and Paris they have this exact same thing
Yep thats basically the la defence district in paris
I agree with u... but how it would be if all high buildings would be in south, east or west london people would need to travel more to get to work in them no? I know historically its not convenient for the high buildings to be in center but economically isn't the best way?
Well what's 10 minutes of travel by train? Or making a new metro line? London is an old beautiful capital town. It's stupid to ruin it with all those skyscrapers. Tourism brings lots of money in. The uglier the city, the less people will visit.
That already exists, it's called canary wharf
This video should be broadcast to every Londoner. When you get architecture wrong it will haunt a city for a long time. London is such a great place. As pointed out architects should appreciate their important duty to make beautiful buildings.
Walkie Talkie aside... Towers are awesome..
***** in London? Yes I like them all minus the Walkie Talkie.. as soon as it was announced I thought it was a joke. Isn't it a little inevitable that this is happening? I follow your videos quite intensely and I do agree we need more beauty... but in my area those buildings so far out of reach financially that I'd rather they build something affordable. Who is building the Georgian townhouse flats for £300k a go?
***** the price is not.determined by building cost. They sell it for the highest possible price.
James Parus agreed... but I'll say again, who is building them? My view used to be build anything and it'll be fine, as rich people will move into the better places and vacate something lower... but the wealth gap is so big that they just buy 2-3-4-5 houses and rent them / leave them empty.
carte blanche In Toronto we call these "Glass savings accounts in the sky".
I was thinking "they don't look so bad, I like the Gherkin and the Shard". Then The Razor and the Walkie Talkie popped up..ugh! Maybe they should copy Paris and put the towers in a separate zone?
carte blanche SKyscrapers are cool, but it should be more organized than what London is doing right now. Destroying the city centre with highrises is horrible! Move them to a designated area like in Paris, it's 5 km away from the city centre but still visible.
This video reminds me of how Paris reacted to the Montparnasse tower, they absolutely hated it but couldn't really do anything about it so they just kept complaining about it.
Imagine littering skyscrapers in Florence.
Now you should understand the extent of what this video is talking about.
I mean yaeh but this is different it just looks so good I like it
Most of humanity's problems are self inflicted. This is one example.
I like Florence, it’s a really beautiful town. Do I want to move there? No! It’s like a museum that is nice to visit sometimes but not to live there.
London makes its choice: to try to be a “museum” or to be a real living, evolving city.
Just an opinion.
Or Prague
Or Paris
Fun fact: The 20 Fenchurch Street _Walkie Talkie_ had to have sun-shutters installed on the convex southern side to dampen reflecting focused solar rays. It's an ugly cartoonish building that's causing physical damage as well!
You could search "Walkie Talkie with sun shutters" or just 'Walkie Scorchie' for results from most news outlets, but I prefer the BBC- www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-23930675
+Paul Keefer To me, it looks like some ugly, big-ass air conditioning unit!
I did work briefly in providence wharf and the tower. what I found was that it was rapid mass building projects but nobody in London can afford them. they've been turfed out and now it's foreign invested and the hoy-polloy. its sad really, all the houses in central London where lights are on, but nobody's home... its just there as someone else's investment.
I love the erratically located and differently shaped towers of London, gives each area a different feel and helps seance of direction.
owenbevt3 *sense
Here here! I remember climbing to the top of The Monument as a child and being dazzled by the awe-inspiring view of an unobstructed central London. Alas no more. I completely agree that there is a place for daring modern architecture but plonking hundreds, literally hundreds of skyscrapers across London blemishes our city.
Agreed. I was in london a week ago and lived in western london and I really appreciated how buildings didnt look globalized which gave the city its characteristics. But when I travelled to central London, those skyscrapers just totally ruined the view and makes the city looks unplanned.
Btw as someone from Hong Kong, I never liked those skyscrapers. They rip the city off its original characteristics, making it look like just any other places(like Singapore) and makes the whole place HOT LIKE AN OVEN in summer because they block all the winds out that I feel like Im gonna get a heat stroke everyday even though I didnt do anything
What;s your opinion on New York? It's charm is essentially the fact that it is a concrete jungle
New York is successful. The city is not a hodgepodge. Its architecture is quite comforting, like a church or the piramides. Perfect balance between open space, wide streets, low, medium and high buildings.
Alice Banaszewski read delirious new york
Hans Coessens Actually I'm not. So you don't see it that way, that's ok.
QBziZ Manhattan was just too small and it got overrun. Some districts still have buidlings limits.. Otherwise there are too many skyscrapers in my opinion, and a lot of them are just fugly concrete ones.
It's not pleasing to the eye in my opinion. It's quite dirty and grimy and a bit mixy-matchy in appearance. I especially dont like the look of the subway - am I the only one who feels it's stuck in the 80s and needs to be updated? I get major tin can vibes. I remember going to Wall Street and thinking "at last, beautiful white buildings." However, what NY lacks in history it makes up for in liveliness and atmosphere. Which is why everyone in London wouldn't turn down a trip to New York! On another note, there's not much green in New York. At least in London I don't feel entirely detached from nature.
London is becoming more like Dubai for more than just the architectural reasons.
Exactly. Who doesn't want a poorly planned highway with skyscrapers. I do like the stylish manmade islands tho.
Bladeside entertainment me too
Hmmm...Not the usual scientific-minded crowd in the comments. For the record, "beauty" is NOT entirely subjective. The human eye generally seeks proportion, symmetry, levelness, and consistency. The human brain is pleased by these things. It is not London's BEAUTY that these relativists are moved by, but its NOVELTY -- which, as the narrator said, will one day wear off (and then what remains?). These are two different things.
Great video.
+Coolidge Dollar That, again, is really relative. I, for example, are deeply moved every time I see an example of Brutalist architecture (which is french for "naked concrete", so no it has nothing to do with barbarity and brutality) and look with pleasure and proudness at these symbols of human development, and I find the style beautiful. Even more so if it is placed in an old city. The contrast is what starts my brain to reflect upon it, not the monotony of the previous, which just numbs the mind.
The romanticism/idealization of the past is one of humanities greatest weaknesses in my opinion.
***** It's not idealization of "the past" if it is based in timeless truths, which are, by definition, timeless. Mankind generally pursues boldness tempered with stability and those other traits I mentioned, which Greco-Roman styles are, and this won't ever change. We've had a fun little trounce with crazy (typically ill-proportioned and leaky) styles, and now -- as the video says -- it's time to return to common sense. Is it a wonder why "New Classical" is the "new" thing?
***** ...Also, most "Brutalist" architecture isn't even that extreme; quadrilateral windows, quadrilateral units, etc. It's not criticized for lacking proper form, it is criticized for looking cold and dystopian. (And having flat roofs, which leak.)
+Coolidge Dollar Cold and dystopian for you, welcoming, warm and sheltering for me.
You seem to be surprised by people disagreeing with the definition of "the one and only, ever true" style of beauty (which probably matches 100% with yours and the one of the creators of the video).
You say it is truth, I assume you mean with that scientifically significant instead of your own opinion. How would you even control for cultural/educational bias in such a study? How would you filter that out?
And, most importantly, what experiments could falsify this hypotheses? If it can't be disproven, it ain't a theory.
***** What do you mean? It's generalizing slightly, but there is reliable science behind it. Do you think it's just coincidence that human beings, for instance, who are considered "beautiful" just happen to have certain key traits? In your opinion, the case for Rosie O'Donnell's beauty is equally valid as the case for Scarlett Johansson's beauty -- or Danny DeVito's versus Brad Pitt's -- because "beautiful" is completely up to subjective opinion? Would you be willing to poll on that? Please explain this strange point of view.
I think London looks great with the new skyscrapers, especially the ones in central London, like the shard etc.
Me too
It's a great thing that you can find a solution for London, to preserve its former architecture from being replaced by towering skyscrapers. In Hong Kong, housing is so scarce, and population so dense that we hardly have a choice. When there is even a problem with procuring a simple dwelling, where have we the time to talk of beauty?
Finally someone is voicing this out load ! I am a recently graduated Architect and I was sick of my teachers and classmates calling all this glass giants The modern beauty ! This problem also exists strongly in Istanbul ! such a beautiful city ruined now by all these giant greedy and ugly towers ! and the sad thing is that they are being built by BIG NAME Architects from Turkey and around the world ! just for money !
I did an internship with a company that was building a giant ugly tower in the middle of the most crowded and undeveloped part of Istanbul on the top of one of the highest hills of Istanbul and the building is NEF 163 and desgined by Norman foster !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
so what are these Architects doing ?! they are giving silly thoughtless designs to greedy companies just for money ! while they use the money to build great buildings so they can be glorified !
I worked with 5 other companies that built towers and the same story was repeated over and over again !
the same with most of the well known Architects and All Turkish Architects !
Give me a break !
Thats why I really respect and love *louis kahn* everything he built he put his soul into it ! even gave his life for his ideologies ! The Jewish Architect that gave a poor Muslim nation its most precious monument !
***** for what ?! check out
www.nef.com.tr/en/designers-architects
check out the picture of the project
i.ytimg.com/vi/BoaE7DEkvG8/maxresdefault.jpg
I can give you all the project i worked in
but you can check each tower built in Istanbul foryourself to find out !
sara meachel Aside from size and tallness, I don't think NEF 163 is that ugly. It could have been worse, some glass shard nightmare.
Kapp Bea Yes I know what you mean and believe me we have these too ! oh my goodness we have glass giants everywhere else and Nef is a different looking tower thats why I gave it as an example !
sara meachel Hi Sara. Could you please explain what you mean by " a poor Muslem nation" ? It sounds very arrogant and insulting. I am not a nationalist, neither a believer and if you have said " a poor Jewish nation" instead, I would
ask you the same question. Why to discriminate people like that??
Anyway, thanks for caring about Istanbul. I agree with your analysis.
***** No dear I did not mean it that way as an insult of anything of that sort, I am a Muslim myself. please look into Louis Kahn's Parliament in Bangladesh, it's beautifully presented in the documentary prepared by Louis's son meant as a journey for his son to understand and know who his father was by visiting and reading into each of his works ending the show with the Parliament in Bangladesh that helped his son to finally to fully understand what kind of a man his father was.
Bangladesh is one of the world's most densely populated countries with 150 million people, 26% of whom live below the national poverty line of US $2 per day.In addition, child malnutrition rates are currently at 48%, and it suffers from many problems such as poor infrastructure, political instability, corruption, and insufficient power supplies "wiki".
Louis kahn built his greatest Architectural master piece in this war torn country that has a very high poverty rate and very little national pride, so he wanted to give this nation Life and hope for a better future. Louis kahn payed for the construction of the Parliament from his OWN money and it got him bankrupted but he was very happy and content for giving his all to this nation because it was not just a building, The parliament to Bangladesh is what the Pyramids to the Egyptian believe it or not.
Louis kahn loved all mankind and did not believe in any discrimination against anyone and that Architecture should promote unity,Equality and peace for ALL the humans visiting the building and with the nature around it ! a total sustainability both for humans and for nature !
I would love to rant longer about Louis Kahn since I am in love with his humanity and geniality but please read more about his Bangladesh Parliament and him as human to urge the Architects today to take his lead!
I adore the Shard. Are you saying that anything taller than St Paul's and made of plate glass is inherently ugly?
Michael Edie I also can se the beauty in such buildings, bat maybe, they just don't belong there...
no
Very surprised at the conjecture and opinions stated as fact here, contrary to the objectivity in a lot of your videos. Such criticisms were levelled at the Eiffel Tower and other iconic structures when they were first built.
I think the Shard looks amazing, and Strata. The Walkie Talkie, maybe not so much, but I'd hardly describe it in such damning terms as this. I'd happily see ten more Shards. The only complaint I have about the towers is the price of apartments in them!
+The School of Life I think you should make it clearer what the problem is. I stayed in Singapore for a while and I think it is actually a great place. Skyline looks great; in residential neighbourhoods they manage a compromise between high-rises and 'life on the street' through wet markets, food courts, gathering areas and small shops on the ground floor. This also allows Singapore to have space for one of the largest urban rainforest area in the world. About Shanghai: I think traffic and pollution are bad, but not so much the architecture. Personally I find the biggest dangers to architecture of a city are the 'modern' blocks/residential areas, all separated by lawn and dead streets. I dont know the technical term, I hope you know what I mean. So long story short: can you elaborate more what the actual danger to the architecture of London is?
+Jack Traveller there is only 1 efel tower
+The School of Life I agree with the guy above, the only problem is the central city bit, towers like the walkie talkie and the gherkin are a bit questionable, however this is how i see it. The only bit of London left after the bombings of ww2 is north of the river going up west, ie.. piccadilly, oxford circus, mayfair, pall mall up to the palace, leicester sq and soho going out towards notting hill etc and this strip of the city is being left untouched which is how it should be. Everything else is a sh**hole and needs building on. East London has needed a makeover for years and in my opinion Canary Wharf and the whole Docklands regeneration looks fantastic. South of the river is terrible and needs buildings both to 'pack it out' and go higher. The Shard is beautiful and hardly an 'eyesore' at all, it's become an iconic part of the landscape. The Elephant and castle project seems to be coming on well too. Nine Elms is going to look fantastic. The only issue is those skyscrapers in the square mile which i agree look ridiculous. When you talk about 'spoiling the city' it baffles me, have you even seen London?? What's to spoil that Hitler hasn't already?
+Jack Traveller The School of Life videos have always been very opinionated. The channel name itself does a great job at warning you that they are distributing a singular viewpoint to the masses
+Jack Traveller the Eiffel Tower is a monument to modern bad taste. The fact that it's "iconic" is not a redeeming value in any way, shape or form.
People all over the world visit London for its great architecture, which doesn't include the modern buildings of glass, glass, and more glass.
I'm pretty sure there were similar complaints about the construction of the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre pyramid, and they are regarded today as emblematic landmarks.
I also find a bit silly the idea of "putting London on the map," as if it hadn't earned that right already.
jaggo84 You can't compare masterpieces like the Eiffel Tower to glass buildings. You just can't. Today these glass buildings are shat out with no beauty or design put into it, not to mention if we were so ambitious to build something today like they were 200 years ago, we might build something worthy of not getting demolished.
Hans Coessens My point being that standards of beauty are subjective and evolve constantly. Also that new styles will face criticism from a part of the population, even if they become iconic some generations after.
ಠಿ_ಠ
jaggo84 Get out of here with your rational thinking!
jaggo84 You don't see hundreds of Eiffel Towers built all over the place though do you? The Eiffel Tower works as a monument to the possibilities brought by the new materials and building methods of the industrial revolution. It is designed with a solid beauty in mind but if there were many of these towers in all sorts of quirky shapes and sizes it would begin to look ugly.
There are just too many oddly shaped glass buildings being sprung up quickly without enough thought on making them look genuinely great. I like the Canary Wharf and the Shard but some of the newest skyscrapers like the Walkie Talkie are just too goofy and uninspired for me.
***** We should rebuild the old world trade center they were beautiful.
Thank you so much Alain for noting the CRIME AGAINST BEAUTY!
Perhaps I'm the only person who finds contrast of old and new buildings in one place beautiful and charming.
You are not alone, and from the architectural and urban design perspective, this is inevitable in Europe. We need to build new buildings where there are already old ones, and we need to try new things so architecture can evolve. The problem is that in most of the cases today, new buildings are directed from profit, rather than architecture-engineering and urban design principles. For me London and Manchester have a really nice balance of old and new architecture if you compare it to other countries with the exception of the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries maybe, but definitely not in every case. The "yoki toki" is indeed a crime. There is no practical, functional or structural reason for this shape.
@@harris_lazaridis To be clear, I think some places do it very good and some places do it horribly wrong. And what I see as a pattern is that places that put new stuff in the middle of bunch of old stuff end up ugly, while places that maintain distance (visually speaking, contrast is still visible in landscapes) tend to get it right.
LOVE the architectural comments on this channel. they speak directly out of my heart.
London needs towers so the World's richest people can stack money in a small footprint.
'old man yells at clouds'
"Architecture should, when it's going right, never be fun."
Was that a serious comment? Why should architecture _never_ be fun?
***** That sounds a little subjective to me. My uncle is a builder and whilst I'd concede that "fun" architecture might not always be the most practical or the easiest for those who have to build, I would say that to argue that it should _never_ be fun is a little absolutist. I think most of us value a sense of fun and to argue that this should never be found in the buildings we live and work in for all of our lives, seems like it might take a certain type of pleasure away from us that we occasionaly take in from our surroundings. I wouldn't argue that all architecture has to be fun, or even that more than a small fraction of it should be, but to see a quirky, colourful, or even playful building once in a while amongst the sensible and practical ones is nice. It makes me feel a little happy. Fun architecture surely doesn't have to necessarily mean bad architecture, although I'm confident there will be examples of the two together.
***** Define fun architecture? And please give an example. Also for the towers alternatives list 1. Its already one of the most densely populated cities on Earth. 2. & 3. Where will all these buildings go? because what you propose sounds a lot like Eixample, Barcelona (which is a fantastic example but not without its issues), there's no space for this in London, there's no huge brownfield sites for such development and if you were to insert them in to small plots of land they'd mostly be replacing similar buildings and still wouldn't look uniform with the buildings around it. 4. I agree with this but as for tower aesthetics Architects aren't the most at fault here, that's the fault of the developer and City councils who hand out planning permission to anyone with the money and specifically in the case of London, Boris, he shouldn't be able to have veto power to grant buildings planning permission but he has and has used this on many occasions. Towers aren't always great but they are necessary in most circumstances.
Architecture can be fun if it's amusing and out of the box...but only when it's done right. The Sydney Opera House, The Eiffel Tower, The Shanghai Pearl Tower, etc, are very fun and unique buildings, as they shine out against the rest. It's amusing to see a structure that seems to blend modern and old architecture. But London is trying to do this without planning first, and that's what's leading to its downfall
Skyscrapers can look beautiful, especially when they're built as a landmark. Taipei's Taipei 101 adds to the skyline, I even think the Shard has a sort of aesthetic value. The problem imo comes when you get too many eye-catchers. In Taipei, the Taipei 101 draws your eye in, it gives you something to focus on. In London your focus jumps around and there is no one point of which to put your focus, quite simply it's messy. While I wouldn't say that this image (down below) of Paris is very aesthetically pleasing, the proximity of the skyscrapers at least have a hint of a "smooth curve" to them, where the buildings gradually rise from the edges, to a peak and then dip in the middle where L'arc de Defense stands, and while the skyline could be enhanced to put more focus on L'arc, it is what it is. Even more messier in the image of the Eiffel Tower, but they at least act as a focus drawing your attention towards the center, towards the Eiffel Tower. Tl;dr: London is imo messy because there are too many eye-catchers.
+William Smith
Taipei: cityskylines.org/images/uploads/2012/05/taipei-city-skyline.jpg
London: www.beingbrunel.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/london-skyline.jpg
Paris: i.imgur.com/vygyl.jpg
Paris 2: www.1iz.net/data/media/193/Paris_morning_2560x1440.jpg
Man that fist Paris pic is ugly, it s a clusterfuck of towers
+Dantick09 I was trying to be kind :3
That's just a view of the La Défense business district to the west of the city. It's not actually in Paris at all.
the shard is nice
***** either way it is still a nice building
agnc Imagine your wardrobe. Every individual piece of clothing looks nice, because that's why you bought it. But that doesn't mean you can wear whatever combination of clothes and guaranteed look nice as a whole.
its shit
A few weeks ago, I spent some time in the Canadian Rockies and had a real wake-up call as too how stupid the goal of building as high as possible really is. I took the tramway up Sulphur Mountain in Banff National Park and looked out over the town of Banff. I knew I should be able to spot the Banff Springs Hotel, but large as it is, I could barely see it. I suddenly realized that if you took the tallest building in the world and transplanted it into the Rockies, it would look embarrassingly comical. In fact, it would look like what it is: an over-ambitious toothpick. Human beings try to build tall to prove their importance, but when viewed alongside the tallest structures in nature, they are embarrassingly inadequate.
Also, at the top of the tramway, is the first weather station in the Canadian Rockies. It's tiny: no larger than the average spare bedroom in a suburban home. Built entirely out of the local field stones, it's perched on the very top tip of the mountain peak and looks as though it had sprouted, fully formed, out of the mountain itself. It was built in 1913, before the tramway was built, and had to be constructed without machinery because it takes 9 hours to hike from the town to the summit, and everything necessary for its construction had to transported up by mule or pure human strength. It is an architectural engineering feat to be admired, and tourists crowded around it, peaked through its windows, and were astonished by it. When was the last time a tower surprised or inspired me in the same way this tiny stone cabin did? Uh, never.
CHANGE SCARES ME would have been a better title for this vid. I actually find the buildings you HATE nice to look at at. You can not avoid the future forever.
+TheShowThatSUX nowhere in the video it says not to change. What he wants is more regulation on the height of new buildings being built, like many other iconic european cities. Keeping the new towers about the same level as other historical building won't pull away the charm of the city. Creating giant skyscrapers all around will just make the city looks generic.
Michael Panggabean Exactly, the "CHANGE" must be prevented.
The "generic" argument is also not one of reality. In many cases you know a city by it's skyline: no 2 are a like.
What you call "charm of the city" most of the world would call OVER PRICED and OVER CRAMPT. When you can not expand horizontally you expand vertically. Basically if this POV is forced like TSOL wants in 20 to 50 years London will be so expensive it wont even be able to compete.
Like it or not EVERY CHANGE of the past was also called the "THE RUIN OF LONDON" and they all helped London in the end.
The WHOLE vid is about an emotion argument to stop London from changing to join the push to be ready for the 22nd century.
Here this actually puts it in proper scale based on the facts:
theconversation.com/dont-fear-the-skyscraper-why-london-needs-more-tall-buildings-45029
Well cry me a precious river of tears. As a Londoner who has watched London since the 1960s, I'd say the city has never looked better. What the rabid 'conservationists' don't get is that new consequential buildings often highlight the great historic ones. The patina, layering and contrast is the thing.
the courage of making a point that is maybe in conflict wirth the majority or the official or trendy point of view. that is what we need
Towers can be beautiful, they sure can, New York has a lot of contemporary awesome towers. People just need to realise that contemporary architecture doesn't mean ugly architecture.
This is excellent. Ignore the critics.
Similar issue on a smaller scale happening in Edinburgh, and it absolutely breaks my heart to see that beautiful skyline getting swallowed up by monstrosities.
All those towers look actually quite alright to me. I love contemporary-looking things.
Actually Singapore still looks good though. Well-structured and planned (or overly, for some people).
your aesthetic standard is quite low I presume
Yeah, singapore looks good, it doesn’t seem out of place, and very sustainable.
I feel like Londoners fear of being "left behind", if this is genuine, is rather stupid. Don't worry; the world knows about London.
That's how I always felt. I am not British but I always loved London. I actually think that it's the historical buildings that make London my favorite city. They're classy and have order to them. They also are unique to England (for the most part). I understand the need for skyscrapers but I wish they were built where the old docks are on the East side of London. I want the historical areas to stay historical.
I absolutely love school of life and the wonderful videos you guys produce. This is by far the best thing I've found on youtube.
However I strongly disagree with the message of this video, as a foreigner living in London for the last 8 years, the thing I love most about this city is it's dynamism and ability to change. There is no "true" London, and that's the best thing about it is living here and watching the city contort itself to its residents. London is a product the of the times and the people who live here.
That's the best thing about this city and the gift for future generations who like many of us will one day make this out home for a while.
They should stop building in the City of London and make that area based around the old architecture. Any new buildings in that area shouldn't block views of the old ones. Canary Wharf should be the skyscraper area instead.
Many of the buildings are of original forms, and I like that, instead of ugly standard cubical prisms.
Aeduh In fact, much of the public opinion when the Eiffel Tower was made was of indignation and outrage at this 'abomination'.
Times change
Except that the Eiffel Tower was built to celebrate the centenary of the French Revolution and the end to rule by divine right-possibly the very antithesis of what the Shard and that monstrous deformity the walkie talkie are conceived to represent.
***** OK, I just googled the Tour de Montparnasse and understood what you meant there. If the video was not able to clarify enough the argument of the architecture in its 'context', your reply and example here do. My god, its true, that tower just totally breaks Paris's landscape.
well that's just like, your opinion man
Nah aesthetics isnt merely opinion.
darwinianpickles yeah they are lmao
Yeah it’s just his opinion to be honest I don’t think that many people even cared
Fantastic video
If it’s any consolation, the victorians might have felt the same about their terrace houses, the ugly ‘red-brick eyesores’ So in a hundred or two years, they might even come to admire our skyscrapers, like the Tour d’Eiffel
ivent been there but idk what could be so bad about some high towers :S
one day we probably will have to build towards the sky to save space horizontally
sooooooooDark 3:55 adresses this.
ye but.... alternatives are usually needed if the main thing is bad
but i dont exactly see whats wrong with towers (even tho he explains how they r "obviously" not beatiful) if its so obvious then it should be obvious to me too :S but it isnt
yea well it sounded like "its ugly for everybody - why wasnt something else considered"
thats why im asking - they dont seem all too "ugly" to me
just as neutral as any other structure could be
if i use scissors i want them to work and not to look nice :S
it may be different for other ppl
sooooooooDark for me, the problem with towers is they havent yet found out how to constructively build with each other to produce a city that 'works'. For instance, if we look at the parisian apartments, or the buildings of Bath, many different buildings all contribute to something greater, like making an arch or circle. They all contribute to the overall 'form' of a city. The problem with skyscrapers is that they all believe themselves to be an impressive centrepoint, like a statue. There is no continuation from one to the next, there is no contribution to the 'shape' of the city at large - they all compete and are slowly outdone, making them feel intrinsically out of place.
Otherwise, towers detract from the view of the sky, they are less efficient than shorter buildings and more environmentally harmful, and nearly all the time have no respect for the unique cities they are built in. The shard would 'fit' in London as much as it does Dubai, New York, Tokyo, Sydney, Beijing. The world is beautiful because of its diversity and many cultures, towers don't contribute to this, they just make the world more boring and the same everywhere. There is nothing in the Shard, for instance, that shouts "London!"
thats a shame what they are doing to London the buildings look like they don't fit in you know
Washington DC has a law that forbids tall buildings. That’s why you won’t see one there. London should perhaps create laws that protect areas from the skyscraper.
Of all the tower alternatives made by the video, the best one is that the building should use materials that fit into the context of its surroundings. Even if it is a tall building, if it blends into its environment, height no long becomes an issue.
The towers that are badly designed will not be cursed for 300 years, they will economically stagnate, become abandoned and be demolished. It is the ones that are mediocre that will become a blight on the landscape. And the ones that are intrinsically flawed will be renovated and the flaws will be covered over or remedied.
The same thing has been happening in Australia, particularly Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, Fortunately, the planners are not making the buildings as jarring as the ones in London.
For friends who are ready to attack:
Before you post another insulting or angry comment, I allowed myself to give an answer to your possible " who are you to say this" question:
Alain de Botton's book " The Architecture of Happiness" became a Nr. 1 International Bestseller. He has a great documentary called " The Perfect Home" which you can find on youtube and he is leading a unique project called "Living Architecture". Here is the information about it:
"Alain has long been passionate about modern architecture. As well as writing a book on the subject, he has been instrumental in starting a social enterprise called Living Architecture dedicated to the promotion and enjoyment of world-class architecture."
***** Thank you very much for your reply! This makes perfect sense.
***** I think I can agree with him on this; a modernist buildings definitely looks out of place next to much older architectural styles
i think london actually looks nice with the shard
The shard is awesome!
I don't hate towers, in fact I love them, but please, don't build something like that Walkie Talkie.
They should impose limits on building height on Historic London (E.g. Westminster) and just build London's Skyscrapers in the new buisness districts (E.g. Canary Wharf)
Skyscrapers aren't bad but they should be built in the areas where their architecture match and not in Historical areas :/
I actually like the Gherkin Tower :P but maybe they should move it somewhere else :)
We have the same exact problem here in Istanbul. The city has changed so much it feels weird to still be calling it by that name.
uhm, no it doesn't, it needs to learn to preserve its history.
Where are you from, are you Turkish? Have you ever seen Istanbul and how out of place these skyscrapers are?
i like tower-dense cities
This video is very opinionated and not nearly as factual as most of the rest of this channel, not everyone shares these views.
+The School of Life Are you guys against towers in London, or would you be fine with them as long as they had better planning and designs? Like the ones in Dubai.
+Ollie Rees This isnt a factual channel though. It's mere thought, which is what makes it good. In my opinion
+The School of Life i disagree with you about the skyscrapers but many of those are truly painfull to look at. Rather than not allow skyscrapers, maybe a stricter guideline on their design could be imposed, to bring more symmetry and substance. we really have to build taller, that is just a fact of life, so why not make that beautiful than try to change the whole thing? :)
Ollie Rees I somewhat agree with you, beauty is subjective, but not at all times. Symmetry has been proven to be more appealing, Da Vinci had that figured out during the Renaissance. But if you call everyone building those structures "artists" then you will lose the weight of your argument. Many of the architects who design the buildings only think of the building itself and what the client wants, not what the normal pedestrian would see while looking at the city from the distance. Having building guidelines were fundamental to the building of some of the most beautiful cities in the world. Im not saying everything has to look the same, that would look lifeless and depressing, what im saying is they would have to follow certain guidelines that look at the appearance of the city as a whole, not just one building lot. I'm not here to bash you Ollie, just a discussion. Good day to you :)
+Ollie Rees isnt it clear by what many cities look like today clear evidence that its not working well? And you just replied to one minor point of what i said.
This lesson is doing exactly what that brave child was doing in the fairy tale
" Emperor's New Clothes". The only one who shouted that the emperor was naked, while others didn't dare to say a word, fearing that they would look stupid. Honestly, I cannot imagine anybody walking around a city filled with skyscrapers and not feel
" claustrophobic"!!
By the way, I love obsessed people! And Neil Degrasse Tyson is completely obsessed with the sky! In one of his wonderful speeches he says:
" The sky is your backyard and if it is not, it should be".
These people are literally ruining your backyards and I think " crimes against beauty" are crimes against humanity.
+Lua Veli You're so true. Going by your recommendation I'll buy de Botton's The Architecture of Happiness.
+Napoleon4778
Hi there! Verry happy to hear that! You can also watch Alain's documentaries on architecture called " The Perfect Home" . You'll find them on his youtube channel, where there are many other great documentaries too. Like the ones about the philosophers, or The Art of Travel or Status Anxiety... Here is a great line from the first documentary I have mentioned:
" Beauty is goodness written into matter".
Thank you for your message. Have a nice weekend!
Thanks for your help *****! I live in New Delhi and my city is also on the path to ruin like London or Dubai. I wish politicians, urban planners and in general, my countrymen, read Botton's 'Architecture of Happiness'.
+Napoleon4778
You are very welcome:-) Thank you also for your message where you were asking me whether I knew Johannes Moller..I didn't know him, but now I have watched some videos. Great musician really. Thank you! :-)
Hey, if you end up agreeing in a few years time that this trend was a mistake: learn from Las Vegas. Dynamite is very effective against ugly buildings!
I don't know what London is like but in Australia the problem isn't developers throwing money at architects, it's developers finding the architect who will do the job cheapest, with predictable results. The money saved is then "donated" to the politicians who have the power to usurp or amend existing planning laws or approve "with discretion" to the benefit of the developer and generally contrary to the interests of the common folk.
the skyline of London is a cacophony.. the old charm it had withered away under the tower's shadows.. you can explain this things with fractals. An historic city center has a more organic feeling because if you measure the relationships between the heights of the buildings , or between different sizes of architectural elements you'll get a fractal dimension which pleases our eye (somewhere around 1.5 i think). If the fractal dimension is too low it's because the geometry is too monotonous and there's not enough change, if the fractal dimension is too high it's because there's too much change between one element's geometric properties (height, dimension, slope, etc.) and the other's. So, scattering towers into a historic city center creates a cacophony .because the changes are too chaotic. The materials also play a role here because glass covered buildings have facades with low fractal dimensions. It's just glass basically, there are not enough details , and if there are some they are not organized in a fractal hierarchy. You can think of music as an example: imagine a techno track with a bass drum playing monotonously without any change for 10 minutes. Sooner or later you will get bored.. so this is music with a low fractal dimension. Now imagine an avant garde band playing senseless notes that don't belong to a scale , without rhythm and without any clear melody. This kind of music will be irritating and unpleasant because it has a fractal dimension which is too high. So, the same principals goes to architecture and urban design. If your'e interested in this topic i recommend you read Nikos Salingaros's books or Fractal Geometry in Architecture & Design by Carl Bovill, or just study the topic of fractals in general..
Well, those who don't like tall buildings know what to do. "VICTORIAN LONDON AKBAR"
I'm dying😂👌
GOD SAVE THE SKYLINE!
*BOOM*
Towers are absolutely needed, but so too are the mid-density buildings mentioned. It's not that skyscrapers are inherently evil, and that mid density housing is being forgotten, it's just that there was no actual planning.
London looks even better with a mix of modern and historic
in my opinion i find the towers beautiful there must be towers in london
vermilion J why so aggressive
vermillion J just like how the Brits stole Australia, India, America, NZ and Canada
I went to London for the first time in 1997. After that I visited many times and even lived nearby for a year. I've heard a saying that who once tasted waters of Thames will always yearn for it. So did I for many years. I've recently went back, in 2014, and almost all of the charm seemed lost. City feels empty, cold and in a very bad technical condition. It's become dirty and run down. It is a shame. I won't be coming back for a long time. Thats for sure.
lob19 London is many times better today that it was in the 90s and before. Transport, amenities, dining, architecture, safety and so on have all improved.
lob19 Surely you must be focusing on the skyscrapers too much if you see the city as cold.
***** London now is cleaner, safer, with better transport, amenities, attractions, cuisine (etc) than the 90's.
***** London's crime rate has dropped substantially since the 90's. So your xenophobic, bigoted theory is proven false.
+vermilion J where the hell in London are you situated mate?????????
I like the Shard
Also the shard helps me out when I'm lost near the river.
Me too
My expressions for decades you just announced precisely. Agree beyond any agreement. Bravo
I have to admit I do not agree with this video and the aspect of tall towers being a problem in the "beautiful city" video also seemed flawed to me. When I see a city that has lots of old architecture and no large towers, I feel that the city looks stagnant. I personally think that seeing old buildings with large modern ones creates a beautiful juxtaposition that the city is alive and vibrant and forward thinking. My home town of Denver, as well as San Francisco and New York, have all done this beautifully by restoring old buildings but letting more contemporary buildings be built near them in place of parking lots or other eyesores. The only problem I see with this giant increase of real estate is that it will either create gentrification or it will create a housing bubble (I do not know the demographic statistics of london so I can't say for sure which). And besides, I wonder how many people threw a fit in the olden days when they built the london tower, the parliament building, and all the other buildings. Those buildings now define London that we all know and love.
San Francisco> th-cam.com/video/ld6qYJe4pRs/w-d-xo.html and New York th-cam.com/video/lw98Kzs8Gng/w-d-xo.html. most overrated and ugly cities. Claustrophobic, dirty, noisy, void. Don't understand all the hype.
I am generally in agreement, but this is too extreme for me. Calling the Shard and the Gherkin abominations is absurd. If you don't like them, that's one thing, but many (in fact probably most) people do, and they're clearly landmarks that add to the city's skyline in a positive way.
The Walkie Talkie on the other hand (which does completely ruin Tower Bridge from a certain angle and looms horribly over many buildings in the City), and many, many other low-grade towers that have been built or are in the pipeline, really should be canned, or at least subject to stricter planning.
The problem is not skyscrapers in and of themselves, it's the lack of a coherent plan to design the best skyline London can build, by encouraging new and innovative architecture but never compromising on heritage or prioritising one building's 'wow' factor over an entire neighbourhood's aesthetics. London's current free market free-for-all is the opposite of that, which is why for every Gherkin, there are ten St George's Wharfs.
Think how people love the Eiffel Tower. It was hated at the time, decried as an eyesore, but has since become one of the most iconic structures in the world, beloved by almost everyone. What Paris didn't do was then say "oh people seem to like this tower, let's build fifty different ones, all over the city!"
Treating it as if these designs or the consent of the mayors is just naïvety is daft. It is arrogance and sadism, "flexing" at the rest of society, showing what they can get away with.
Excellent video. Let's hope that London isn't going to continue being the site of a tower-pocalypse.
I disagree, the Shard lands beautifully in the streets, people of London should be thankful it was Renzo Piano who designed the building, from all the "Star architects" he's one of the few people without a giant ego. Imagine if it was Rem Koolhaas or Zaha Hadid (RIP) who designed it?
I agree. I really love the Shard but I do wish the Shard was built in Canary Wharf away from the historical areas of London. All the new modern buildings and towers should be built where the old docks used to be. I want the historical areas to stay historical. Those historical buildings are what make London London. Not Dubai and Shanghai as Alain says.
Sanat Dharma I half agree with you and here's why: It is true that modern architecture can often clash with historic buildings but London has a serious housing problem. You can either go up and maintain the compact nature of London that maks it so iconic, or you can extend the urban area of the city and build highways and suburbs like in the modern North American cities.
It's a tough position to be in, especially when London is set to become one of the leader 'environmental-friendly' cities in the world.
Fabian Moreno - I agree that the city needs more housing. The issue with skyscrapers is that they are expensive and its the middle and poor class that really need that housing they cannot afford. If you want to build tall that fine but it should be away from the historic center and in a concentrated area instead of sparse out looking like nothing was planned and all out of place. The docks is a large area of the city. You can fit in Manhattan twice or three times in East London. That is where the skyscrapers should be. I think the City of London needs to put a height limit and really keep that area historical - I guess a bit too late now. All buildings on the banks of Thames in Central London and Western London should be kept historical. Once you reach the docks you can make as modern as you want. It should be like Paris. The central part of Paris is kept like a museum, other than the Eiffel Tower and Montparnasse tower. At the Defense, in the far west side of the city, you have all the skyscrapers. A city needs to grow and that includes growing tall for the population size but we should not have to destroy our history for it. A tree without its roots dies.
the shard is fucking disgusting
Finally someone said something!
Absolutely agree about Walkie Talkie. I detest it. Of course London needs new buildings, and some high buildings are inevitable and fitting. But unlike many of the huge cities being built, we have the Tower of London, Palace of Westminster, Wren Churches, street corner pubs - this is London and we should be showing them off, not smothering them. I feel desperate about the city I love.
I like the way London is looking
while i get the point i don't really think this is much of a problem
***** half the old continent away from london :)
...Maybe some of us like the current way it's going?
+behapfs This is really a horrible argument. Would you allow a child on a train to pick out your daily wardrobe? Or would you trust his taste in movies? If you allowed a child to choose what to eat every day, he would die of diabetes. I'd rather trust a miserable old git who has some understanding on how things work than a toddler wearing Minion overalls.
+behapfs tastes do indeed change, but they should change harmoniously, not by taking a dump on every aesthetic principle developed throughout history for the sake of being "edgy" or "entertaining". this applies both to architecture and western culture as a whole. Lowering the bar shouldn't be the competition it is today. the gherkin is the honey boo-boo of architecture.
it is too bad that buildings of this type are built randomly across the city and not in a dedicated quarter, like La Defense in Paris...
This may be unrelated to the topic you discussed in London's ruin, but will there be any discussion on incorporating public spaces in the new architecture and why that is needed? Thank you.
London is a capital city and these modern buildings enhance it. Don't get me wrong, I do love some of the old buildings but come on, we can have both.
You can have both, but when they're located in the right places. For example, a large majority of Paris' skyscrapers are in it's CBD, La Defense. In London they're spread out and often don't look like they belong there
London, when I visited was unlike any other part if the UK I saw. It reminded me a lot of American cities, in a bad way: all the heterogenous architecture and cars everywhere.
I like the eclectic craziness going on in London. Granted, I totally agree that 6-8 story buildings would do a better job of densification by miles. I also agree buildings MUST interact with the ground. I've only been there once so I have no perspective over time. But buildings that look out of place and distinct make a city fun to look at. And YES, being fun to look at also matters a lot. I will end by saying that while I do hope the city isn't overrun with towers, having several just adds to the long memory of architecture of London.
+Donald Derrick If it helps the folks at "School of Life" to understand my aesthetic, I think Dubai is fugly, but I think Singapore is one of the most beautiful cities on Earth. Not all cities of towers are the same to me.
Great video!!
As a turist, I actually enjoyed the contrast between classical and modern architecture in London. Maybe this video is exaggerating things a little too much.
vermilion J I love the way you displayed your very well written and structured argument there.
Good Lord - the changing face of London. I think I know why these developers and architects don't care about the traditional aesthetic of London's skyline.
Hmmm... I wonder why the buildings are similar to ones found in Asia and the Middle East. I thought London was a European city?
Who cares what are you gonna do about it it’s not like you have power over the government
I actually like the shard... I think it's very original and actually pretty, it looks like a piece of glass... is it because it's big?
Classical style always works
I wonder if these large mysterious and seemingly pointless towers have anything to do with brutalism?
Why do you hate towers??
I like towers and there are a lot of beautiful ones in the world (he is over exaggeration a little tbh) but London is building a lot of ugly towers and so are a lot of other cities.
Macky Cabangon the word your looking for is skyscrapers
He doesn't hate towers. He actually has said that many times. What he hates is towers that are in the wrong places and hates the feeling that he can be anywhere with all the new modern buildings looking the same. He also does not think that towers are all that necessary. Skyscrapers can block out the light on the streets and make them really windy. In Toronto, for example, the wind has become unbearable in many of the new high-rise areas. Those streets were filled with outdoor cafes but now everything is indoor because the wind blows things away. Building smaller buildings are better to keep the light on the streets and not obstruct the upper stronger winds downwards. He wants buildings in London that say this is London. He wants buildings in Paris to say this is Paris Not buildings that say this is anywhere. Cities need their unique character!
The problem with the Walkie-Talkie building was that its design focused light to the extent that it is able to melt things on a hot day.
London is a dynamic ever changing city, it has been for the past 2000 years. The city mixes old and new very well, however it sounds like you wish London to be a museum?
What exactly is 'London's culture'?
It's ludicrous to state London is copying Dubai, when the number of high-rises' being built is fractional in comparison; Paris has more tall buildings than London.
RedDawnKing RDK I think they should expand outwards instead of building those skyscrapers in the City of London. Canary Wharf is great, but the Shard and the City of London's skyscrapers destroy London's figure.
As a 30 year old full time skilled worker that will never be able to afford property in London...I hate to say this, but...I don't care about the foreign, overpriced London of today.
I love London's modern buildings. I think they make they make the city look better.
+The School of Life I'll have to do that sometime.
+The School of Life their quirkiness is what makes modern London so special (I am not aware of any other city where most towers are so characteristic they've got their own nicknames). Another cool factor is that, because the tower boom has happened quite late in London, you get this sci-fi vibe from the city, where you get old buildings close to the ground and exclusively modern architecture in the clouds.
Nevertheless, I loved the video! Falling in love with your channel even though I disagree with plenty of things said here.
+Jakub Korzeniowski I agree.
+Trae Hall Seriously? I think all modern skyscrapers are ugly. I like the gothic skyscrapers with the gargoyles and the stained glass.
+Graham6762 they're not technically skyscrapers
Reported as facts, when loaded with opinions. The new buildings are exciting and beautiful and move London from the 19th century to the 21st instantly.
I can't believe the "walkie-talkie" exists; I thought it was photoshopped.