That was a hefty Google challenge, but I got there! Logically 
it comes from a church dedicated to St Andrew …
Oh, and here’s the church: http://www.cityoflondonchurches.com/standrewundershaft.htm
Well, it was designed by a British architect in 1951, and much of the design was influenced by the London Council of the time, and the imperative that no building should “block the royal views”. If there’s a problem with New Zealand House’s design, it’s due to where it’s located.
Yeah, I can’t really think of any other European city with skyscrapers in the city centre other than Frankfurt, either. It’s by far the most American-looking skyline of any European city I’ve visited. Looks quite out of place on the continent, really.
Yep, Frankfurt, Moscow and the docklands development in London dominate this list.
Jesus wept.
Quite apart from the fact that central London doesn’t need the additional office space and nobody’ll be able to afford the flats, London Bridge is already at breaking point for public transport capacity – the last thing you need is another several thousand people commuting there. That said, it might obscure the ugliness that is Guy’s Hospital, so there’s a potential upside there.
Ideally there should be more development out by Clapham Junction instead, which is reachable by pretty much everywhere in the south of England. I suppose the ground isn’t suitable, though; south London has a lot of underground rivers (as mentioned above) that make major building works impracticable.
That masterplan is supposedly complemented by massive redevelopment of London Bridge station to improve capacity - as part of that ever-timely Thameslink 2000 project. Agreed, though, that the office space just isn’t needed, and that it’s the result of various politicians’ Freudian fascinations with big buildings.
Heh. I used to work at the SRA and have seen some of the (various) specs for TL2K. 24 trains an hour through Blackfriars? You’ll be lucky. And that’s assuming they ever get permission to build over Borough Market, one of the biggest issues holding up the scheme.
While I’m digressing, I’m working in Stratford at the moment and if London gets the Olympics I hope the plans include major station renovation, because it’s hell to get around the station as is. Major concourse gridlock will undoubtedly ensue if a a few tens or hundreds of thousands of people are added to the commuting throngs
Oh London – you’d be such a nice place if it weren’t for all the people…
Hey, I work at CP (mostly in Bristol but we have a London office) - ugly from the outside but it has incredible views. Best of all, when you check in at reception, they give you a card for the lift that knows which floor you need and calls the lift for you. What more do you want from a building?
(Yes, beats me why pushing a button is suddenly deemed so difficult!)
Sorry, but not true. The WTC Complex was put in that particular area to revitalize it in the 1970’s. Before the WTC went up, it was a very seedy area full of electronics stores and industrial warehouses. While it was almost always a center of commerce in the past, it was a port, not a financial center. As downtown was hitting its peak frenzy in port commerce in the 1840’s, wall street was already the center of financial commerce. It was the Rockefellers who dreamed of making it a financial center, and sold the project as a revitalization.
The Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building were built in the 1930’s so there was no northward march of tall buildings. Tall buildings are built around taller buildings. The cluster of skyscrapers to the south are a direct result of the WTC complex, not some already rich commerce tradition.
There’s also the huge development at white city (aka chav city) and the ongoing stuff at Kings Cross.
Stratford eh? Get in the Two Puddings much?
[Another ex-SRA employee checking in! B*strds made me redundant in March; I am hoping and praying that all the senior management get the boot when the SRA is wound up next year.]
In addition to the other rail-related developments previously mentioned, there is also a vast one proposed at Cricklewood in north-west London, which would include a monster 40-storey job. Described in the Edgware Times last year Cricklewood station is in the way and would therefore have to be moved a few hundred metres north.
I think I’m right in saying that the Transport & Works Act Enquiry into Thameslink 2000 was not at all happy with the plans and have sent them back to be redrawn. That will may mean that the tedious railway closure procedures carried out in 2000 might have to be held again, unless the new designs, particularly the network ones, can be shoe-horned into the definition of “minor closure” in section 39 of the Railways Act 1993, as amended by section 237 the Transport Act 2000…
Is this the BBC development at White City or are there other works? I don’t recall the Beeb planning any skyscrapers, although I haven’t seen much of the planned development beyond the Music Centre.
Nope, as I don’t tend to linger. Apart from a brief browse of the shopping centre, I haven’t felt the urge to sightsee.
Suddenly your screenname parses. 
And of course there’ll be “minimal” disruption to services. Maybe they should just build the station into the building?
IIRC, that’s right, although the Borough crowd had legitimate objections (there’s new build in the market area for starters, and they’d actually have to take a whole story off at least one building to run a new rail line through).
[quote]
That will may mean that the tedious railway closure procedures carried out in 2000 might have to be held again, unless the new designs, particularly the network ones, can be shoe-horned into the definition of “minor closure” in section 39 of the Railways Act 1993, as amended by section 237 the Transport Act 2000…
[quote]
Pah. You’d think they could at least start running more trains via Elephant & Castle (another prime site for building, especially if you take down that hideous shopping centre) and build a new station at Camberwell. But then something might get done…
When did the Crimson Permanent Assurance building sail over the edge of the Earth? An incident like that might make anybody a bit skeptical about the practicality of skyscrapers (particularly if they had any doubts about the loyalty of their employees).