By 2030, the City of London financial district will have sprouted an entirely new crop of skyscrapers. And the difference will be striking.
The Square Mile is set to get 11 new towers, the tallest stretching higher than any there now. Together, they will turn what is a somewhat scattered and erratic cluster into a tight, almost grid-like area where tall buildings will line up in a formation resembling the bristles on a toothbrush.This new view comes from the City of London Corporation, which says 500,000 square metres of new office space is approved or under construction, and another 500,000 square metres of space is proposed.
So far, reaction to these impressions of the future skyline has been largely hostile. One commenter on X, formerly known as Twitter, said it would turn the City into “Londhattan”, while others questioned the wisdom of constructing glass-clad buildings during a climate crisis and starving streets below of light., new skyscrapers could swamp housing-starved London with more commercial floor space. Central London has an office vacancy rate of about 8.
High-rise buildings have been appearing here for decades, typically constructed on the sites not of historic structures but of 1960s and ’70s office complexes that had reached obsolescence. And while a few of these towers –– have become well-liked, several others have been notable aesthetic and practical debacles, in particular the Walkie Talkie, a building so flawed it seemed to have been designed to antagonise everyone.