Londons 7th Gift To The World
Over the next week, Cities in the Metroblogging Network will be offering up their ‘ 7 Gifts to the World ‘.
Today I am going to start with my favourite thing about the city, but please do check our other cities and find out what it is exactly that seperates one city from another written by the people who live there!!!
My first thoughts onthis raised a lot of Ideas - London has pretty much everything a person could ask for, exciting night life, historical referance in all contexts, a royal family (!) and a pub on pretty much every corner, but what is it exactly that makes me love living here?
It struck me hard yesterday while poncing around on my Dads little cruiser on the Canal. Architecture! As a up and coming Interior Architect I am never out of sight of beautiful and inspiring buildings.
When you think about it , Architecture is the Foundations of our society. From blocks of council flats to the Tower of London, we live work relax and shop in these masses of concrete and steel.
In some parts of the City there are buildings that have stood the tests of time, they made it through the second world war, IRA and more recent bombings. Up at Ludgate Hill you can find an Island of buildings that still bear the scars of the Blitz, and in the distance you might just glimpse the House of Commons - the building that didn’t get blown up!
Not only is the landscape of our City Historical, its also Dynamic, everchanging and full of technical impossibilties that have been overcome - We may not have Chicagos Scrapers or Paris’s Tower, but we have a city that no matter how many new and exciting masses of glass you put in between the long standers still looks elegant.
How many times have you looked up whilst walking down the street? Do it ! what you will see is sometimes breathtaking. you can find a tudor house next to a elizabeathan terrace and then 70′c Council block, and it doesnt even look weird!
Teamed with this London has some of the most respected and finest Body of Architects and Designers to our name. The British design industry is sought out world wide as is the style of our nation. BIDA and RIBA continue to grow in stregnth representing one of the things that London does best - Teaming the Old with the New, in a style and manner that no other City has managed.
I asked myself last night which of all our structures is my favourite - and there is no answer, I like Trellick Tower because of its Imposing state across my part of West London, I like The Paddington Basin as a whole because the the way the shapes and countours of each building and bridge there forms a whole mass of beauty, whilst showing each material used’s stregnths and weakness off. I love the Coloumns at the Imperial War Museum, and the stark slopes of the Glass Shopping Centre at Victoria.
Likely at a Push I would seek out Battersea Power Station as the Best - not for its beauty (thats a little hard to find) but for what it stands for. It was the Power from that big old peice of concrete that powered London and allowed us the energy to progress in all our industries. Sometimes the Building isnt all about the elegance, facade or beauty, its about the function too and every building I think of in London has its function and form down to a tee.
Tags: Metblogs7Gifts 7Gifts Metroblogging7Gifts 7 gifts to the world
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London is a beautiful city with incredible architecture! I love the idea. Check later in the week for the NYC architecture post. I hope ours is as well-written and descriptive as yours, Ruby.
– Noah from NYC.Metblogs
cheers Noah I will do - Ive been seriously looking forward to some of the American cities versions as it is a BIG passion of mine!