Getting high on South East London's crowning glories

When the city's too hot - head for the hilltops of south-east London. Head for Dawson Heights!

So I said I was going to change, and write lots of positive, morale-lifting stuff in 2019. Of course that was a New Year's resolution and those things have to be broken.  But this one starts off on a very positive note: it is about South East London, which – as a resident of a dreary SW postcode for far too long, has always seemed to me to be the infinitely more exciting, romantic, creative and simply all-round decent half of south London as whole.

I'm not going top justify that statement - but this piece and many that have gone before, and more that will follow - tell you that story.

It was about 20 years ago, strolling through Brockwell Park late on a rare brilliant January day, sun low in the western sky, dramatically floodlighting the hills above Dulwich and beyond.

There, right at the highest point, were twin, golden, towers rising out of a pair of stepped buildings, dominating the landscape beneath them like the fortifications of some Italian hill-town built by 20th century modernists rather than medieval masons.

I'd been vaguely aware of these buildings for a long time, and became increasingly fascinated. What was this place: the headquarters of some sinister intelligence organistion, looking down on us all, monitoring us from its multiple elevations?

Of course it took only one search to find out that this was social housing from the golden age: an example of truly progressive policy of the 1960s, on the part of Southwark Council. Even the name of this council estate - Dawson's Heights - has a romantic ring. It could be the title of a thriller or some boy's own adventure yarn.

The story gets better, the deeper you dig. The design of this big, extremely conspicuous project was entrusted to one of the borough's youngest architects - the 26-year-old Kate Macintosh. In 2019 we have so-called "starchitects" working for multi-billionaire clients and the richest governments worldwide.  Half a century ago we had incredibly talented, socially-committed, idealistic architects working full-time for local authorities on public sector schemes.

More recently, working all around this area, I was getting almost daily doses of the place. Stopping for a rest in Horniman Museum gardens - at the top of Forest Hill, just to the south - you get an excellent view of the ziggurat-like quality of these flats, as they hang off the side of the steep slope.

Seen closer up, and from below, the buildings lose a bit of that dramatic quality, and after a while they become just another part of the south London landscape, affected like everything else by one's own gloomy moods.

But hearing of a photo exhibition about this development as part of the RIBA's "Six Experiments in Social Housing" season, revived my interest. This was a small, free show of 20 photos of the then recently completed estate taken in 1973 by the photographer Sam Lambert, commissioned by The Architect's Journal for its archive. They have never been shown in public before, and they give a real sense of how thrilling it must have been to be one of the original tenants living in what was a truly modern, even futuristic, housing scheme.

The modest exhibition includes some lovely interior shots, and also some interviews with current residents. One describes how, every New Year's Eve, residents congregate on the "streets in the sky" aerial walkways to enjoy one of the best views of the firework displays in London. A nicely-timed slap in the face for prevailing orthodoxies on social housing design.

What's also great is that this estate is still social housing: it has not gone the way of other modernist icons such as Trellick Tower in North Kensington, where flats are now selling on the private market for millions. Despite efforts by the 20th Century Society and others, the estate has not yet received  the protection of Grade 2 listing - which seems odd. But, by all accounts, it is not in imminent danger of destruction or redevelopment - itself a rarity in these shoddy times.

Back in Brockwell Park, look west, and you see another example of well-designed 1970s social housing - the Cressingham Gardens estate on Tulse Hill Road. This one also tried and failed to get grade 2 listing - but unlike Dawson's Heights, this estate is still having to campaign for its existence. It has been under threat of demolition and redevelopment by the landlords, Lambeth Council, since 2015.

Open House London weekend celebrates 25 fantastic years: hurray! But what's with this Clapham Old Town walk?

Here we go, into the radical redesign of Clapham Old Town on the new cycle-friendly pathways....sort of.

If you're into London's Open House weekend, then your annual treat is getting very close, and this year's free booklet is packed with even more potential pleasures than ever before.

What's more, this year's weekend - on the 16th - 17th September -  is the 25th anniversary of Open House London, which took a brilliant, simple idea and made it happen: why not open up interesting buildings - however grand or however modest - to the public, just for one weekend in the year?

This year's catalogue includes a great Top 25 of the most popular buildings it has featured over the years - the perfect trigger for debates. It also includes several topical essays on the big issues facing the city now, notably affordable housing, transport and traffic congestion, and accessible open spaces.

As a creature of bad habit I turn immediately to my local borough - Lambeth - and find amidst a well-stocked selection of local treats, this slightly curious entry in the Walks & Tours section:

"Clapham Old Town and Venn Street: This guided walk...looks at a radically redesigned public realm which re-balanced the street environment in favour of the pedestrian and cyclist..."

This refers to the recent tarting up of the old Polygon area which was commented on by this blog back in 2014.

So here you are at the end of Bromells Road. Cars have to turn
left across the pavement. No signs to say what bikes should do,
even though a bike path starts just across the road...

Well, the patch of artfully sown wild flowers at the northern tip of the Polygon (or is it "piazza" now?) is gorgeous. The new public space around the Polygon and Rose & Crown pub is certainly neat and tidy but to be honest it's a bit sterile. Especially now that the old public toilets have disappeared behind hoardings.

There are a few of those metal chairs scattered around, single seaters which look like they were designed to give bankers who have just been told their bonuses are frozen, somewhere to sit and contemplate their futures.

There's a very celebrated upmarket restaurant, a trio of pubs (if you include The Sun and The Prince of Wales across the road)  and...well,  a couple of cafes, also over the road...but not much else.

As for it being more cycle friendly: well, how, exactly?

After a couple of years of trying to get to grips with the remodelled and supposedly bike-friendly traffic flows,  they still seem at best puzzling, often confusing, and in some places downright dangerous to both cyclists and pedestrians.

Here it is - so off you go, heading north against the traffic 

Firstly, far from "reining in" motorists, they have given those coming from the north two separate routes up to the Common and the High Street. They can either be good and follow the B303 past Orlando Road and stop at the junction with the one-way system around Clapham Common.

But if they're in a hurry, or just typical motorists, there's nothing to stop them going the old way, up past The Sun pub and the local Sainsburys and a load of new flats, then pushing their way back onto the one-way system via The Pavement. It's a new rat run beloved of big white vans and equally big black SUVs.

Originally under the new scheme, as I remember, this road was gated at the northern end, and should have been for resident and delivery access only.

A few yards on you get to this bit, but no explanation why
you might want to turn right across the road...nothing!

Most of the pedestrians coming from Orlando Road, The Omnibus Arts Centre and the homes and many businesses on North Side want to get to the tube station. So they continue to cross the road at the point, directly outside the old Library (now The Omnibus) where there used to be a very well-used pedestrian crossing.

Mysteriously they have now moved that crossing just 20 or 30 yards further east, past the Starbucks, and just far enough to make it seem an annoying diversion if you're in a hurry.

The trouble is, this road is now two-way and there is also a bus-stand a few yards to the west. There are almost always a couple of 249 double-decker buses waiting there, which completely block the view, making it impossible to see approaching traffic until it is literally upon you. This is so dangerous for all pedestrians.

As for cyclists, well it seems like the cycle route has been sketched-in by some town planner at the end of  a long liquid lunch; clearly they all forgot that this bit of the scheme was never fully planned.

Not that anyone expects joined-up thinking from a council that has recently shut down one of the finest, best-loved and most-used libraries in London.  (In case you missed the stories, I mean the Carnegie Library in Herne Hill).

But a joined-up cycle route through this complex junction of roads would be good. The route as it stands is, frankly, bonkers.

If you do cross the road, you end up on this scary contra-
flow bike lane where you are glared at by drivers of big
black shiny SUVs (and OK, other vehicles too...)

If you're coming from the Brixton direction, or from Clapham Common tube station, and aiming for Lavender Hill or Wandsworth Road - well, you have to think hard about where to go. Most cyclists just follow the roads. The pavements around the tube station offer no bike routes (although quite a few cyclists use them, to the annoyance of crowds of commuters and school-kids milling around here at the busy times).

There are no signs to encourage cyclists to use, for example, Venn Street - which looks pedestrianised, but is it?

So the bike lane seems to start quite arbitrarily on the edge of the Common, 100 yards further north, opposite the junction with Bromells Road. This is a one way street with no bike lane. Cars and bikes have to cross the wide pavement to rejoin the road (which, confusingly, is called The Pavement at this point).

Cyclists can then cross the road and get onto a little bit of bike lane going north; but a few yards further on it sends them back across the road and onto a contra-flow bike lane which is frankly scary.

If you follow the cycle path past the above-mentioned wild flower patch, it sends you back west towards the Common - and to re-cross the main traffic flow, this time on a zebra crossing - so

As you can see, parked cars and oncoming traffic both
habitually impinge on the so-called cycle lane.

that you've negotiated four of the five sides of the Polygon to get back to a point a few yards from where you were 5 minutes ago.

There's a tiny bit of pavement here which has one of those joint use cyclist/pedestrian symbols in one paving slab - but who notices that? And the path is not wide enough for this dual use.

Like you, I hate seeing cyclists charging around recklessly on footpaths - but around here, it's sometimes almost understandable.

Lambeth Council is still open to changing these arrangements, apparently, so let's hope this Open House Weekend walk makes the crazy layout of these bike lanes clearer to all.

Plenty of really great stuff in the Open House programme, though. In Lambeth, the residents of the threatened Cressingham Gardens Estate have organised a tour, as have the residents of the Central Hill estate in Crystal Palace. Both these estates were built in the 60s and 70s; a Lambeth architect, Ted Hollamby, was involved in both; they are both largely judged to be successful in meeting the need for low-rise, high-density, housing - important in the 70s, absolutely vital now.

In neighbouring Southwark, there's a chance to learn  more about the Dawson Heights Estate, a place that has always caught my imagination. From the distance, say in Brockwell Park,  it has the look of some re-imagined version of a medieval hill-town. Somewhere, in other words, where I always wanted to live!

There's so much to see, and only one short weekend to see it all in! Until 2018.

Meanwhile, September's also the month of the Lambeth Heritage Festival. Plenty of fascinating things are promised: must try to digest all this info, and get along to at least some of these events. Thanks!

Clapham Library's cafe remains closed – pity they didn't take some tips from Southwark

It's odd but true that two neighbouring south London boroughs, Lambeth and Southwark, have such different approaches to public libraries, despite having so much else in common.

These and several other thoughts emerged as I sat hunched on the terrible little narrow bench that passes for seating in the public library in Clapham High Street.

Clapham Library, half five on a Friday, the café is shut, and no-one can
use the seating. 

Thought one was: I should sue Lambeth council for doing my back in, as sitting on this bench for 20 minutes trying to find some info had revived long-buried lower back pain.

The bench was one of the only vacant seats in the library late on a Friday afternoon.

There were lots of empty chairs and tables in the café. But the café is closed. It seems no-one can enter what used to be the biggest seating area at ground level in this strange building, and it also seems that this café - which opened less than a year ago - has already shut down, at least temporarily.

No-one could explain why it was closed again last Saturday morning - surely a potential peak time. Have the operators decided to cut their losses? All the equipment is still there.  And why on earth can't we use the seats, whether or not it's selling its pricey hot drinks and snacks?

Absurd or what?

Given that most library users are schoolkids, students, OAPs, or young parents with toddlers attending storytime groups etc, it would seem that the cafe was aiming at the wrong market. The 30-something folk who love to spend their high earnings on small cups of coffee with silly names would not really need to come here - this area is full of twee little coffee shops, not to mention the obligatory Starbucks etc.

If the cafe had sold cheap and cheerful coffees, teas, and some simple grub, it might have worked. No item more than £1.

Mind you the café was well used, particularly in the exam season when there was really nowhere else to sit and study - but probably most of those customers bought one drink and then stayed the whole morning, revising or whatever.

You couldn't really blame the cafe operators - they probably thought Clapham, that's a wealthy area, let's go for the yuppie market. But the yups ain't there, they're all over the road at Cafe Nero. It was surely the fault of the council for agreeing to let this bit of public space for a private business.

They even threw in the toilet as part of the deal - outrageous or what?

Well, I'll check out this café again later in the week. Maybe if they have gone the council will be seeking another taker for this space...who knows. Maybe they should offer it to a food bank?

But then, this new library building was always a bit compromised. We only got it because they let the developers build that clunky edifice of expensive flats above and around it.

This library is rightly popular for its wide range of events and classes, especially for very young kids. The staff are great and someone clearly goes to a lot of trouble to try to maintain an interesting stock of books.

But from the start, it's been clear it's not really a very good space for what should be a core library activity - reading!

Yes there are some "teen" study areas, and a very cramped little general reading area up the top, plus a few small PC rooms. These are nearly always fully occupied. Right at the bottom there are cell-like meeting rooms, which are hidden away; you feel you are not really supposed to be there. The large floor area at the very bottom of the building has several tables and chairs for studying and a couple of sofas - but this is generally considered to be the children's area, and again you feel like you're breaking rules if you go down there to read.

In fact as I sat on my tortuous bench, two women with young kids came down the ramp, one saying in a very loud voice, "Oh I do hate it when grown-ups sit in the kid's area, it's creepy..."

Well I wasn't in the kid's area but halfway down the ramp. Every so often very young children zoom down the ramp on their scooters. Any moment you expected to hear a thump followed by much wailing. Luckily, no such disaster today.

All this made me think again what a wasted opportunity this library was, especially when you compare it with some of the much older libraries Lambeth has been closing or compromising under its heavily criticised scheme.

Lambeth only has to look east towards its much more competent neighbouring borough, Southwark, to see how to run libraries.

I've been working in Borough High Street for a couple of days a week, and have got to know the Harvard Library, close to St Georges Church and the tube station.

Despite its historic origins, explained on a blue plaque, this famously-named library also now occupies a fairly modern building, quite a bland one compared to the over-designed Clapham project.

There's nothing very pretty or exciting about it - it is simply a good, sensible building, which could just as well be offices or shops. But it provides plenty of space for all the activities a modern library has to offer.

So, there are lots of computer workstations for schoolkids and students as well as local workers seeking somewhere to wile away their lunch-breaks when it's cold and wet outdoors.

There's a kids' area of course. And yes, there is a café. It's right at the front of the library, but unlike the Clapham one it does not usurp any reading space. Anyone can sit in that large area, where they have sensibly located the magazine and newspaper racks. Anyone can stay there all day reading and not buy a single coffee.

But every time I've been in there, the café has been busy. It's a lunch destination for local workers, an after work place to relax for a while before meeting up with friends. And a wonderful sanctuary for all the drifters, the lonely, the homeless, the old, freezing construction workers, the young, tired tourists, whoever happens to pass.

That's what a public library should be! And by the way, they had two different complete translations of Proust on the shelves,  and their CD loan collections were amazing - 40p for a week's loan.

Talk about grass being greener over the administrative boundary fence.

A lovely new library with lots of books and no PE equipment has opened…in Camberwell

So new they haven't finished the paving yet: Camberwell Library is in the London Borough of Southwark, but only
about 100 yards from the border with Lambeth, where libraries face closure or conversion into gyms

Talk about greener grass and fences and so on, but while Lambeth's library-loving residents are battling a council plan to turn three of their libraries into gyms, so a brand new library with some 27,000 real books and other media is opened just a few yards from the borough's border, in lovely Camberwell.

The new Camberwell library was opened on November 4, treating residents to an elegant, light-filled, dedicated  building on the east side of Camberwell Green. There are no expensive flats above, no mini-supermarket embedded within the building.

It's not a showy statement building like Peckham library just down the road - an award-winning design by architect Will Alsop, built in 1999 – but it doesn't need to be. It's a pleasing, warm, functional space filled with books on shelves, computers on desks, and people using them.

Cross the road, walk up Denmark Hill, and you'll soon get to Herne Hill's Carnegie Library which is one of the three earmarked for changing into  "Healthy Living Centres". But the Carnegie is in Lambeth. Camberwell, like Peckham, is in the borough of Southwark.

A week ago, 600 of Lambeth residents marched from Brixton to the Tate South Lambeth library to express their dislike of these plans. Especially to the councillor behind the scheme, one Jane Eddington, who was inside the TSL Library at the time the demo arrived. But she was not willing to meet them, nor to discuss things further - as has been pretty much the case throughout. Lambeth seems determined to press on with these salt-rubbing-into-wound style cuts regardless of what its council-tax-paying, vote-casting, library-loving residents think.

So what is Southwark doing that Lambeth isn't? How can it build new libraries while Lambeth wants to close beautiful and much loved gems of the public library movement?

 Is Southwark taxing its residents more? Is it cutting other services more deeply? Is it running up a huge debt? It's not actually doing any of these things to any significant extent. Both boroughs are under heavy  central government pressure to reduce spending.

The former Camberwell Library occupied two old shops, where it had been
since a much grander old building was destroyed by bombs during
the London blitz.

And yet, Southwark currently has 12 public libraries compared to Lambeth's 10, five of which are likely to close or be turned into gyms. Both boroughs have more than the the average social deprivation. But Southwark has a slightly smaller population than Lambeth (288,000 against 303,000) and is also slightly poorer.

Both boroughs are Labour controlled, though both have had Lib Dem coalitions in the past.  Southwark has more surviving council housing (in fact it has the highest amount of all London boroughs) but both boroughs have been criticised for selling off prime sites to private developers.

They both have similar annual budgets of around £320million. They even look like mirror images of each other on a map.

But in terms of priorities, it seems they are as different as possible. Or am I missing something?

Next step: There's a public meeting on the Carnegie Library's future at 7pm tonight, 16th November, details here.

Elephant subways go, along with their lovely tiles

Oh the deep dark secrets of the Elephant! Never again will we be able to enjoy them, or fear them, in the way we once did.

Read on the excellent LondonSE1 community blog that three more subways at Elephant & Castle shopping centre have been closed as redevelopment of the area continues.

Apparently there are now only three of the old subways left open - the ones beneath the New Kent Road and the centre, and two to the island in the middle of the roundabout.

Not many people seem likely to lament the loss of the formerly pink-clad shopping centre and its multiplicity of tiled and muraled pedestrian underpasses, but I for one am sad.

I got to know the centre back in the 70s when I  worked as a clerical assistant on the sixth floor of the DHSS hq, Alexander Fleming House, while Keith Jospeh was health secretary.

This great building, one of Ernő Goldfinger's designs, which seemed so new and tall then, is now a pygmy apartment block looking up coyly towards the show-off high-rise stuff being erected all round. But it was once the centrepiece of this area - watch this fascinating documentary from BBC 4.

Yeah, I'm sad, especial at the idea that the centre and all those new Latino businesses that have sprung up will be pushed out…and sad at the loss of that tiled subterranean world. Just as I was sad to see the almost Romanesque tunnels and arches of Tottenham Court Road tube station swept away to be replaced the the New Clean Sleek stuff of the Crossrail era.

To find out what's going to happen at the Elephant, you will need to negotiate a series of flashy, flash-rich websites, saturating with this joint effort between the London Borough of Southwark and developers, Lend Lease. If you want to know what's happening to the shopping centre, you will need to navigate through the fragrant shallows of the retail group Delancey which bought the centre (in a 50:50 deal with APG) two years ago.

It doesn't actually tell you very much, and there's no mention of the subways at all. I wonder what they've done to all those lovely coloured tiles….maybe they will re-use them?

lol. (the photos that  illustrate this were taken back in 2014).

Catch it while you can: compared with what's coming, the 1960s Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre is a thing of beauty

It might be a shock to the system to say it, but now I can and I will and I say it loud: I love the Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre!

Well of  course you do because it's now under threat from gentrification and you always jump on these bandwagons etc - down with the wicked property developers all over again etc!

Yeah well it's not just that. I mean I had my first real job across the road in Alexander Fleming House, when it was still the DHSS, back in the early 1970s. Did all my shopping in the centre for a while, but by then it already seemed a bit down-at-heel.

There was that 80s  revival with pink paint; but much more recently the centre seems to have re-invented itself as a new multi-ethnic version of the 1900s covered market, a bit like a 1960s version of the big Brixton markets a couple of miles down the A23. And we all know how everyone just luuurves Brixton Market these days.

Approaching the magic roundabout from the south on the 176 bus in glorious spring sunshine, the first thing you have to notice is the absurdity of that new tower block with its Batmobile finials and the three  wind turbines still stubbornly refusal to budge an inch, evening the briskest of south-west winds.

If I'd shelled out over half a mill for a two-bed in that silly building I'd at least want to insist on getting some cheap wind power back.

That building is just so tacky and horrible that we will all soon come to revere it, for sure. It even has an appropriately wanky name: Strata.

Back to the case in point however.

The knee-jerk opinion of the place is "yuk" - and yet, each time I visit I like it more. (Of course it has many other fans - see this piece on the London SE1 site for more Elephantophiliac views). I always liked the sort of mossy undergrowth of open-air market all round the edge, or under-lip of the building. Three pairs of acrylic trainer socks in Rasta colours for £2.99 anyone?

Inside it has a surprisingly civilised air.  Just its age has given it a bit of dignity: climbing the steel and pink composite stairways you think, they don't make things like this anymore. The whole interiors has been given a rather good paint job in those bold reds, yellows and greens that give it a definite LAtino feel, while the  rubbish has been stripped off many shop front to reveal a nice Mondrian-esque grid pattern of girders which have also been  panted. Good God it is almost tasteful!

More stylish than Westfield - the cool spacious shopping
 floors of the Elephant and Castle's 1965 shopping centre,
soon to be demolished

The civilisation is real there though, just look at the fabulous Colombian bar-café La Bodeguita slap bang in the middle of things. Then there are the African textiles and foods, the useful Clarks Shoes factory shop, plenty of Asian places to fix your phone, etc, etc - it is usually busy and clearly really popular with a many different nationalities for family shopping andy socialising.

 What with everybody now scrambling over each other to get a piece of the London property pie before it collapses into a column of foul-smelling steam - the old Shopping Centre will go. It's clear the centre's days are already numbered - no point in crying over it now, just read this bit from the Standard a few months back and kick yourself for being so slow.

So the country's first "Mall" or covered shopping precinct, as we knew it then - will be replaced, presumably by more stubby glass towers of  "affordable" £200k+ flats and some "social amenities" - a swimming pool perhaps, or a library. At least we're not getting a Westfield here.

But how can they replace somewhere so good? Can't imagine there'll be much demand for the cheap underwear from the new residents. Once again it seems developers are being allowed to steal something which has much more value than the pounds-per-square-foot costings of the land.

You can find out more about these plans on Southwark council's site, and  from the developers who know own the Centre, Delancey. Click there and feel your heart sink as you see dozens more of those architect's cgi images of shiny plazas and piazzas.

The Shard? Maybe it's too good for London.

Today, the Shard was showering silver light across Southwark and into my borough, Lambeth. I liked it a lot.

The  debate about Renzo Piano's strange addition to London skyline has been quite good fun, if predictable. Many have complained that it's too big or damages views of St Paul's or whatever. As if London actually had a skyline worth preserving, before this rather beautiful  reverse icicle appeared, shaming all the shabby 60s and 70s and - ugh - 80s and - yee-uch - 90s stumps it looks down on.

That great Canaletto skyline of St Pauls lording it over all the other Wren churches and warehouses was finally trashed in the 1950s and 60s. I'd argue that the so-called Shard (spike? stalagmite? stretched tee-pee?) acts as a sort of peg for all the new rubbish. It gives them a wonky sort of focus, hints at what might have been had London had a proper cluster of aerial architecture. It suggests this most strongly only from directly due north and due south viewpoints. From Brixton Hill, or from suicide bridge in Highgate, say.

From others - as from the little south London train that clatters between Clapham High Street and Peckham Rye - you see all of London's new, tall buildings in a washing-line parade, or as a receding gum stabbed with an absurdly variegated assortment of rotting and disintegrating teeth.

Like the Gherkin, but unlike most others, the Shard works well as a standalone. Nothing else built in this muddy riverside settlement over the past three decades has quite so cleverly exploited our fast-changing estuarine skies and cloudscapes. I am very biased, I love real skyscrapers. By real, I mean something that soars away and makes you gasp. In the 70s, Centre Point and Barbican and the NatWest tower tried and failed. I have always despaired at London's pussyfooting approach, and I hate the dreary cluster of sub-Dallas identikit bricks downriver.

But even sceptics are beginning to enjoy the Shard. I love the way it pinpoints London Bridge for anyone anywhere within a 20 mile radius. How, as you follow the Thames, it approaches, and recedes, and approaches again, and teaches you just how extreme are the river's bends.

I love how it disappears into the grey eiderdown and blotting-paper clouds that so often flop down  across the city. I love how it wears its glass like a sort of frozen gown, translucent drapery that reveals flashes of the muscles beneath.

I love how it rises, so un-phallic, above the city as you cycle down any of the seven south London hills towards the centre, and get that reverse-Whittington view of the golden cow of the city. I love how, quite often, I think I am looking at yet another view of the Shard and then realise it's just another Victorian church spire a few hundred yards away.

From Hampstead Heath, it complements St Pauls, standing back, offering the great cathedral some reflected light, and in no way competing with it.

I love how it seeems to bulge at the base and embrace poor ugly old Guys Hospital next door. At times, it's almost a mother-and-child portrait - you wish the shard could wrap some of its glittering glass skirts around the malformed granny, hide her brutal planes. But then again, Guys has a mad beauty about it. It is really the dwarish grand-parent of this ludicrously elongated sapling.

I love how it shines with almost biblical auras at dawn on clear winter mornings. And how on dull grey afternoons it takes on much of the grey-green muddiness of the thames water it rises out of.

It's really a far better building than London deserves at the moment. The true spirit of London of 2013 seems more honestly reflected in the thuggish, moronic, shoulder-padded silhouette of the lump going up on Fenchurch Street. Now that really is ruining views.