Nine Elms disease part XX: Skyline campaign brings good taste to the debate

At last, someone comes to the debate over London's resurgent skyscraper plague with matters other than money and politics in mind.

Writing in the Architect's Journal, former City of London planner  Peter Rees poured scorn on the quality of the new residential towers going up across London - but especially those in the Vauxhall/NineElms/Battersea developments.

He rather weakens his case by contrasting these "dumbed down" "investment towers" with some of the new buildings in the City that he was involved with - the Gherkin and the Cheesegrater, sure, but what about the repulsive "Walkie-Talkie"? Did the plans for that one not pass under his highly sensitive nose?

That apart, you just have to applaud the campaign's aims, but it looks like it's just too late. Certainly for those of us watching our lovely views across London being daily narrowed down by the shiny boxes of various shapes rising out of the old Battersea marshes.

In a separate article in the same magazine, Robert Bevan  singles out the hideous St George's Tower at Vauxhall, which is best known as the location of a helicopter crash last year. Great the way an architectural expert can really lay in to a nasty building - he attacks its joylessness, and the "cheap grey glass and steel" finish, at odds with the "cheap green glass" of the equally hideous winged towers next door/beneath.

Oddly, another recent and quite loud bit of architectural statement at Vauxhall is the subject of a preservation campaign. That's the shiny "ski jump" shelter at the massive bus station, all of which is now to be swept away under Lambeth's plans. Good luck, Kate Hoey MP et al!

Walkie Talkie reflects on the harsh glare of publicity

A week ago I described the so-called Walkie Talkie block in Fenchurch Street, London, as one of the ugliest buildings in the country.

I emailed Radio London to that effect, in a drunken attempt to contribute to a discussion prompted by Building Design mag's round up of the worst  new buildings in the UK, aka the "Carbuncle Cup 2013".

I am a bit worried now that, according to the latest news, this building is not only ugly but actively malicious. Apparently it has been melting totally innocent Jaguars parked within range of its deadly sunlight-focusing concave reflective surface,  burning the paint off shop-fronts and frying eggs in the hands of fascinated pyro-maniac tourists.

That was not what I meant when I called it "a gargantuan lump which wrecks the view from almost every direction. Its shape is as moronic as its nickname."

I added: "That shape just makes me ill. It is a shape dictated by greed - more sq m of office space than the  ground level footprint. And it steals the light from a a much large area of the City than any other building.

"Best solution - demolish it now. More realistic solution - build more, bigger, better  skyscrapers around to to render it insignificant. "

Ironically, I revisited the  area earlier this week and have to admit I found the nearly completed building much less horrible at close quarters than it looks from a distance. I rather admired  Rafael Viñoly's subtle curves, and especially the tromp-l'oeil effect you get looking straight  up from the pavement of Fenchurch St - at a certain point it all seems straight, as the perspective cancels out the fattening of the soaring structure.

(And I am not just saying this because I am afraid it will turn its terror-beams in my direction).

I still think it is a blot on the City skyline - it is just so hulking, so smooth, so un-London. It might look fine on the Florida coastline, or in Doha, or perhaps even Portsmouth, where it could focus its glare on the Solent and boil up the sea. Maybe someone could then tap the solar energy and put it to good use?