Architecture of London

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London is the second largest urban area - and largest city - in the European Union area; as the ancient city of Londinium founded in the first century CE and nearly continuously inhabited, it is not characterised by any single predominant architectural style but areas of the city exhibit very strong and influential urban qualities which have deeply influenced urban planning globally. Considered with the administrative capital of the City of Westminster, relatively few structures predate the Great Fire of 1666, with notable exceptions including the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Banqueting House, Queens House, portions of St James's Palace, London Charterhouse, Lambeth Palace and scattered Tudor survivals.

The ancient City of London initially laid out as a planned Roman city in the 60s CE alongside the River Thames contains a wide variety of styles, from Roman and Romanesque archaeological remains to remnants of the medieval Gothic walled city, English Renaissance buildings by Inigo Jones to English Baroque by Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor, Neoclassical and Imperial Gothic financial institutions of the 18th and 19th century such as the Royal Exchange, the urban set-piece of Regent Street and Regents Park by John Nash and the Bank of England by John Soane, to the early 20th century Old Bailey (England and Wales' central criminal court) and the Modernist 1960s Royal Festival Hall, Barbican Estate and Royal National Theatre by Denys Lasdun.

Notable recent tall buildings are the 1980s skyscraper Tower 42, the Lloyd's building with services running along the outside of the structure, and the 2004 Swiss Re building, nicknamed the "Gherkin" which set a new precedent for recent high-rise developments including Richard Rogers Leadenhall Building.

London's historic 'low-rise' - actually mid-rise - character has been, somewhat controversially, altered over the last generation with new high-rise 'skyscrapers' erected reflecting London's predominance as a global financial centre - Renzo Piano's 310m The Shard is the tallest building in the European Union, the fourth-tallest building in Europe and the 96th-tallest building in the world

Other notable modern buildings include City Hall in Southwark with its distinctive ovular shape, the Postmodernist British Library in Somers Town and No 1 Poultry by James Stirling, the Great Court of the British Museum, and the striking Millennium Dome next to the Thames east of Canary Wharf. The 1933 Battersea Power Station and the Tate Modern by George Gilbert Scott and Herzog de Meuron are striking examples of adaptive re-use, whilst the railway termini are globally significant examples of Victorian railway architecture, most notably St Pancras and Paddington.

The city of Westminster is the ancient political centre of power and contains the globally recognised Palace of Westminster and the iconic clocktower of Big Ben. The city contains numerous monuments, from the ancient heart of London at London Stone to the seventeenth century The Monument to the Great Fire of London to Marble Arch and Wellington Arch, the Albert Memorial and Royal Albert Hall in Kensington. Nelson's Column is an internationally recognised monument in Trafalgar Square often now regarded as the centre of London.

Since 2004, the London Festival of Architecture is held in June, and focuses on the importance of architecture and design in London today. One quarter of UK architects operate from London with the majority of the most high profile global practices based in London including Zaha Hadid Architects, Foster and Partners, Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, David Chipperfield and David Adjaye among the most well known internationally. In September Open House weekend offers an annual opportunity to visit architecture normally closed to the public free of charge from grand public buildings such as the Bank of England to contemporary private housing.

Video Architecture of London

Prehistoric

Although no pre-Roman settlement is known, there was a prehistoric crossing point at Deptford and also at Vauxhall Bridge and some prehistoric remains are known from archaeology of the River Thames. It is likely that the course of Watling Street follows a more ancient pathway. Ancient Welsh legend claims the city of the Trinovantes - dedicated to the god Lud (Caer Llud) was founded by the followers of Bran the Blessed whose severed head is said to be buried under the White Tower facing the continent.

Maps Architecture of London

Roman Architecture (60-500CE)

Londinium was initially founded as a military trading port while the first capital of the province was at Camulodunum. However following the Boudican Revolt of 61, during which both cities were razed to the ground, the capital was removed to London which rapidly grew to preeminence with the establishment of a Forum and provincial Praetorium. The city was originally laid out to a classical plan as many other cities in Britannia and throughout Europe in a roughly rectangular form with the south side formed by the River Thames and divided into blocks of insulae. Two east-west streets (now Cheapside and Lower Thames Street led from Newgate and Ludgate to form the cardo presumably leading to a lost gate (or gates) at the present location of the Tower of London which exited to Canterbury and Dover. Bishopsgate, as an extension of Watling Street formed the decumanus maximus crossing the river from Billingsgate over the ancient London Bridge to Southwark and the south coast road beyond. The Forum was located at Leadenhall Market - said to be the largest building north of the Alps in ancient times - remains can still be visited in the basement of some of the market shops. The rectangular walled and gridded city was soon extended to the west over the River Walbrook, north towards marshy Moorfields and east to the area later known as Minories where a Romano-British tomb sculpture of an eagle was found in 2013 suggesting the site lay outside the city limits in the early second century. A significant portion of the amphitheatre remains beneath the London Guildhall square and a Roman bathing complex is accessible in the basement of 100 Lower Thames Street. The square Castrum was located at the northeast of the city at the Barbican close to the Museum of London where significant sections of the Roman London Wall remain. For centuries afterward, the centre of London was reckoned from the London Stone claimed in the past to be a fragment of ancient masonry from the ancient Thameside Governor's Palace, though this cannot now be verified. Late Roman private houses of leading Christians are thought to have been the foundation of the earliest churches- mosaic remains in the crypt at All Hallows by the Tower and may also have been the case for St Pauls Cathedral - its growing significance over centuries has distorted the once-straight strada on which the site once stood.

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Georgian Neoclassical Architecture in London

During the Georgian era (1714-1830), London increased in size greatly to take in previously separate village such as Islington and Clapham, hence much of inner London is dominated by Georgian buildings. The 'Georgian' style is the British form of Neoclassical architecture heavily influenced by the liberal whig political ideology of Palladianism; it is especially influenced by neo Renaissance proportions which ultimately originate in Italian architecture, with strong influence from French Architecture and especially the Dutch Baroque architecture under William & Mary with strict emphasis on plain, unadorned brickwork, geometrical harmony and restrained classically inspired ornament as at Kensington Palace begun by Christopher Wren after 1689. Key architects in the development of the London architecture through the period begin with Inigo Jones Queens House (predating the Georgian period entirely), through Wren at the west wing of Hampton Court Palace, Colen Campbell, John Nash (architect), Robert Adams (architect) and John Soane. Areas such as, for example, Mayfair, Bloomsbury, Regents Park, Islington and Kensington have very high proportions of properties surviving from the period which have become the archetypical 'London Townhouses' and being, highly desirable, fetch some of the highest private property prices in the world.

Domestic houses in London are distinctive for their sunken basements built on brick arch foundations, rusticated base storey, taller piano nobile reception floor and attic storey. They are generally built from buff (pale yellow) London Stock Brick to golden section proportions, often generously spanning triple bay frontages with 'implied' columns or pilasters and carefully proportioned and very large off-white sash windows , slate mansard roofs above an attic pediment. They were grouped in formal Garden squarea, crescents and terraces with wide pavements supported on brick vaults on wide, straight public streets often with private access to romantically landscaped gardens. Later encroachment of commercial properties has significantly reduced the apparent width of historic streets in many parts of London where the original plans was comparable or in excess of those found in Continental urban planning.

A typical house was designed to accommodate a single family with front and back room on each floor and a partial-width rear 'closet' wing projection. The ground floor was reserved for business, the tall piano nobile for formal entertaining and upper storeys with family bedrooms all accessed from a stair positioned on the side party. Servants accommodated in the below ground kitchen and in attic rooms in the roof Each of the distinctions in function was subtly indicated in the decorative scheme of the facade by the sequential height of openings, projecting cornices and restrained decorative mouldings such as round headed arches and rustication at the base and diminishing columns, sculptural capitals, balustrades and friezes expressing the top.

Diagnostic features include:

A tall panelled front door with an arched fanlight often flanked by columns and covered by a pedimented canopy is reached up a short walkway which extend from the street, arching over the basement cavity and protected from burglary by a run of wrought iron security railings.
Sash windows which allow the window to be held open on corded lead weights to ventilate the room - developed in Holland and first seen in the Royal Palaces, they became common in Georgian times - previously casement windows had been the norm. The sash box joinery and ovolo or astragal moulded window frames were designed to be as slim and unobtrusive as achievable using the largest available sheets of glass in either a '6 over 6' or '6 over 9' pattern. Since the 1980s, these are often now painted in brilliant white , however this modern colour did not exist in the period, originally these were painted ivory off-white, pale yellow or other darker colours of the period.
Window openings in the proportion of 1:2 or the golden section - the windows were headed by the Dutch style flat arch often made from gauged brickwork in the finest properties.
The roof is often hidden by a parapet above an attic frieze. This was initially to reduce the spread of fire, however in much of London parapets were added to Georgian houses for aesthetic reasons alone. From the street the building appears as if it has a flat roof, but from the rear one can see that there is a double pitched 'butterfly'roof.
Elevational classical adornments such as rustication, pilasters, columns, medallions, friezes, cornices and false pediments often formed in timber, stucco or natural stone are obvious indicators of wealth and status - however much care and restraint was exercised to avoid the excessive flamboyance of continental architecture, with a marked preference for severe simplicity, honesty of means and sparseness of ornament in line with Protestant and neo-Palladian thinking, best exemplified by the work of Scottish Enlightenment architect Robert Adams - a philosophy extended to interior furnishing by the Thomas Chippendale furniture.
Suburban buildings are usually constructed from London stock brick, which have a yellowish buff colour (which often appears grey - see 10 Downing Street). More prestigious houses are rendered with stucco or built from imported natural stone.
Chimney breast were located in shared party walls with gable parapets projecting above the roof line. The great number of chimneypots on London properties indicate the relative wealth of the inhabitants serving fireplaces in every room.

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Brutalist architecture in London

Following the Blitz London's urban fabric and infrastructure was devastated by continuous aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe with almost 20,000 civilians killed and more than a million houses destroyed or damaged. Hundreds of thousands of citizens had been evacuated to safer areas, the reconstruction of a habitable urban environment became a national emergency.

The re-housing crisis aligned with post-War optimism manifested in the Welfare State afforded an opportunity and a duty for the architectural profession to rebuild the shattered capital. The internationally influential urban planner Sir Patrick Abercrombie established the 1943 County of London Plan which set out redevelopment according to modernist principles of zoning and de-densification of historic urban areas. The 1951 Festival of Britain held on London's South Bank became an important cultural landmark in sharing and disseminating optimism for future progress - the Royal Festival Hall built 1948-51 and later South Bank Centre including Hayward Gallery(1968), Queen Elizabeth Hall/ Purcell Room (1967) and the Royal National Theatre (1976) remain as significant architectural and cultural legacies of the era.

Accelerating pre-War trends, overcrowded urban populations were relocated to new suburban developments allowing inner city areas to be reconstructed - the Golden Lane Estate , later followed by the Barbican by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon are regarded as a case book examples of urban reconstruction of the period in the City of London, where just 5,324 local residents had remained by the end of the war. London had also attracted a select group of important European modernists, some as refuges from Nazism, and the post war era presented opportunities for many to express their unique vision for modernism. Important European architects of the era include Berthold Lubetkin and Erno Goldfinger who employed and trained architects on modernist social housing such as the Dorset Estate of 1957, Alexander Fleming House 1962-64, Balfron Tower of 1963 and Trellick Tower of 1966, as well as Keeling House by Denys Lasdun in 1957.

International movements in architecture and urban planning were reflected in the new developments with separation of motor transportation and industrial and commercial uses from living areas according to the prevailing orthodoxies of CIAM. High-rise residential developments of Council housing in London were above all else influenced by le Corbusier's Unité d'habitation (aka Cité Radieuse('Radiant City')of 1947-52. The architecture of post war modernism was informed by ideals of technological progress and social progress through egalitarianism - this was expressed by humanistic repetition of forms and use of the modernist material par excellence - Béton brut or 'raw concrete'. Significant Council Housing works in London include the Brunswick Centre 1967-72 by Patrick Hodgkinson the Alexandra Road Estate 1972-78 by Neave Brown of the Camden Council architects department.

The British exponent of the internationalist movement was headed by Alison and Peter Smithson, originally as part of Team 10 they went on to design Robin Hood Gardens 1972 in Bow and the Economist Building (1962-4) in Mayfair regarded by architects as some of the very finest works of British New Brutalism.

Many schools, residential housing and public buildings were built over the period, however the failure of some the modernist ideals coupled with poor quality of construction and poor maintenance by building owners has resulted in a somewhat negative popular perception of the architecture of the era; this is however being transformed and expressed in the enduring value and prestige of refurbished developments such as the Barbican, Trellick Tower and Balfron Tower regarded by many as architectural 'icons' of a distant era of confidently heroic progressive social constructivism and highly sought-after places of residence.

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Skyscrapers and structures

London has a growing number of Skyscrapers with twelve buildings under construction to rise above 100 metres (328 ft) with a further 44 approved. The Shard London Bridge (topped out in Spring 2012) is the tallest building in the European Union being 310 metres (1,016 ft) high.