Architecture - Archive Articles

In praise of Euston Railway Station

Much derided, in part for its admittedly shabby appearance and dated fascia, as for how it reduced the Euston Arch to rubble, Euston Station is not a particularly loved building.

Planes, Trains and Drains at the Building Centre

A new exhibition about London's infrastructure opened recently in the Building Centre that shows off the three dominant challenges for the city in the decades ahead.

There is a Big Red Shed on the SouthBank

If you have passed by the Southbank recently or crossed over Waterloo Bridge in a red bus, you might have struggled to avoid seeing a big red shed that has appeared next to the National Theatre.

London Wall’s Ugliest Tower Block

Of the many post-war mistakes built in the City of London, one of the ugliest has managed to cling on determinedly, the black and steel monolith of St Alphage House.

A look inside the Lighthouse HQ next to the Tower of London

For just under 500 years, Trinity House has been looking after the safety of seafarers around the coasts of Britain, but an organisation set up to save people from disaster seems to be rather unlucky with its own buildings.

The splendour that is the Victorian “Cathedral of North London”

As Private Eye is wont to say, it's Grim up North London, but if the eponymous characters of that newspaper were to dart out of their shell, they might find a remarkable building peaking its tall spire above the council estates of Kilburn.

England’s oldest Lych-Gate found in South London

If you approach an old church, mainly in towns and villages rather than cities, you might enter the churchyard through a small wooden gate with a pitched roof.

Closed for 130 years, the Duke of York column in central London

In 1834, a tall observation tower was opened to the public near to Trafalgar Square giving people a chance to look down on Pall Mall and overlook St James Park and Whitehall.

A look inside one of London’s longest office buildings

One of London’s longest office blocks has recently been undergoing a bit of a clean up and last week, I was able to have a look around the spartan interior before the new tenants move in. The building is the…

Photos from the Top of the “Walkie Talkie” Skyscraper

A new skyscraper is emerging on to London's skyline which will probably become as significant a shape as the Gherkin or the Shard -- the curiously nicknamed "Walkie-Talkie".

A huge model of the City of London

When showing off a city as a possible place to invest in, you need a nice office space to educate the guests, and it helps to have something pretty to show them.

A Slightly Behind-the-Scenes Look at Kings Cross Train Station

When booking a tour of Kings Cross station with limited information about what the tour will include, there is a risk that it will be just a wander around the public areas, or maybe a good look around some of the building site that is closed off to the public.

London’s first skyscraper gets listing upgrade

Once the tallest secular building in London, the London Transport's iconic Art Deco headquarters building, 55 Broadway has had its protected status upgraded from Grade II to Grade I.

Photographing the Wharncliffe Railway Viaduct

Trains to and from Paddington Station have to traverse a wide, but quite shallow valley near Ealing, and here stands one of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's great constructions - a massive brick viaduct - known as the Wharncliffe Viaduct.

Painting London’s roofs white

One of the worrying aspects about climate change is the melting ice in the Arctic, but not because all that melted ice would cause a rise in sea levels. In fact, about 90% of the ice is below sea level,…

London Festival of Architecture

The slow trickle of “happy new year” messages is still coming in, and this one from the London Festival of Architecture is one of the better variants, so I thought I’d put it below. It neatly blends my love of…

If the Burj Dubai was in London…

…what would London’s skyline look like? Well, a little like this: I’ve roughly compared the height of the Gherkin (180m) to the Burj Dubai (818m) to scale the source image. Obviously I’ve guessed where it might be located if it…

Frobisher Crescent at The Barbican

Thanks to an invite from the chaps (and chapesses) over at the Londonist, I found myself lurking around the entrance to The Barbican Centre this morning – waiting for a chance to have a look at the first significant redevelopment…

London’s Riverside Amenities – An Exhibition

The ever excellent Building Centre in central London (just off Tottenham Court Road) is hosting an exhibition about plans for waterfront living and transport in the city. Not just the obvious River Thames and Lee Valley, but also several other…

The Hole in The Wall

Near Hyde Park, many years ago I found this rather charming local feature – and recently, I finally remembered to take a camera and photograph it. I originally found it when doing one of my random wanderings around, where I…