architecture

st paul's cathedral on the nla city model

The New London Model: Towering over the City

16/02/2024 donbrown 0

Should you want to feel godlike, the entire capital spread out beneath your glorious presence, then the place to go is The London Centre, in […]

the view from Horizon 22 - the viewing gallery at 22 Bishopsgate

Up on the roof (again): the ‘Beast’

18/01/2024 donbrown 0

At 278m (912’) and 63 storeys, the new(ish) office block at 22 Bishopsgate is the tallest building in the City of London, and second only […]

battersea park peace pagoda

The London Peace Pagoda in Battersea Park

06/12/2023 donbrown 0

In 1829 the Duke of Wellington, the then Prime Minister, fought a duel with the Earl of Winchelsea on Battersea Fields, an area of common […]

western pumping station pimlico

Victoria’s Campanile – the Western Pumping Station

03/12/2023 donbrown 0

As one rattles across the Thames in to Victoria station an elegant building appears on the Chelsea Embankment on one’s left. It’s a building on […]

Albert Bridge: “A temporary gangway flung across the river”

21/10/2023 donbrown 0

One of my all time great London moments was a late summer evening about 30 years ago when I was walking home from a meeting […]

The Blue Bridge in St James’s Park

03/10/2023 donbrown 0

It’s the platform for a trillion photos – to the west is Buckingham Palace, framed by trees, and look east to see Horseguards, the London […]

Prince Albert’s Mega-kitsch Memorial

06/09/2023 donbrown 0

Of course the damn thing is utterly absurd. Every criticism of high victoriana – over-sentimental, over-decorated, over-elaborate to the point of fussy, over size – […]

St George’s Bloomsbury: the triumph of “the Devil’s Architect”

28/08/2023 donbrown 0

Find your way to the High Holborn entrance to the roof terrace of the new ‘Post Building’ (the former Royal Mail West Central District Office), […]

St Mary’s Isn’t in the Way

15/08/2023 donbrown 0

One of the ways in which the city has been vastly improved over the past few years has been the claiming back of roadways into […]

Duck Island Cottage – Westminster’s Swiss Chalet

15/05/2023 donbrown 0

It’s somehow absolutely typical of london that some of the closest neighbours to George Gilbert Scott’s huge Italianate Foreign Office building is a pair of […]