Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmlnr | Hacker News Reader

In 2012 I used to work around the Liverpool Street Station area. I quite liked it, especially the Lloyds building, but at the time there were already a lot of constructions going on.

I haven't been there for years until recently, and the change there is crushing. It became cramped, insanely large buildings everywhere, Lloyds barely visible and tiny with the Cheesegrater next to it. It was an eye opening experience how much can change in a relatively (building age wise) small time.

EDIT: 2009 vs 2019 views of the LLoyd's building:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5140007,-0.0812995,3a,75y,...

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5139823,-0.0812983,3a,75y,...

View on HN

Personally quite like, and can see the value/use of, the dense mixture of old and new architecture in such a central/busy location. And endlessly prefer London's route of having most of its skycrapers in the concentrated, central areas, leaving the rest of the city's skyline low and non-oppressive for the majority of the nicer residential post/area-codes. So much easier to escape the steel/concrete/glass sun blocking monoliths in London than in say New York

My problem is the lack of breathing space. I love the Barbican, but that was designed knowing that if you don't leave some green and space here and there, it'll crush you.

The newish ones - eg 22 Bishopsgate, The Scalpel, The Cheesegrater, The Walkie-Talkie - are BIG in every dimension. They dwarf the Heron, despite the fact that the Heron is taller.

I've never been to NY though.

I like the new developments, personally. London's skyline has become a lot more interesting.

I love how London is a constantly evolving city, rather than being kept in a museum to conform with some design aesthetic from a distant past.

I wasn't against evolve at all. The problem is the absurdly claustrophobic feeling that overcomes me with the current new developments. They are too big.

That's odd. I don't get any kind of claustrophobic feeling from having a handful of additional tall buildings in the center of the city.

Liverpool Street, Kings Cross, Holloway - all places once warm and familiar to me are now cold, oppressive masses of dense, synthetic development. London's never really stood still - certainly not in the 20 years I've lived here or the near 40 years I've had experience of it - but the rates of development over the past decade and a bit are astonishing and somewhat saddening to me.

All seems a bit 'too much, too quick'.

>Kings Cross

Come on, Kings Cross was a dump 15 years ago. It's much nicer now. There are lots of generic-looking glass buildings, sure. But they've also removed the horrible 60s/70s concrete structures covering Kings Cross station and restored St Pancras Station and the associated hotel. If you don't think that the area has improved overall, I'd have to say that there's no pleasing you!

I think "dump" makes it sound rather nicer than it actually was!

oh come on, this is somewhat a nostalgia trip. I would assert that you're as equally annoyed that your definition of what it was is now inaccurate as you are about the changes.

For those without that prior frame of reference what is now will just be what it was and they'll add their own complaints next decade. And thus time marches on and we cannot change it.

Sure, KX is somewhat 'better' in some ways than it was a while back, and I'm not against development per se (I used to note your observation when I worked in Camden and realised each generation down there would rue the loss of whatever version of 'old Camden' it was they held dear) - what I'm concerned about is the sudden comprehensive change of an entire area. I'm generally suspicious of inorganic large developments as they tend to crowd out smaller businesses and encourage more chains of widespread consumer outlets, as they're the only ones who can afford to sign up 'off plan'.

Coal drops yard and the new St Martins are very pretty, and certainly striking and elegant but I do worry that they're quite synthetic and sterile and what impact that will have on the students.

Whether or not the future students of St Martins will be any better or more successful than the ones who studied at that cold building in Holborn, I don't know.

- ed typos

>Sure, KX is somewhat 'better' in some ways than it was a while back

I really think you must not be familiar with Kings Cross at all to say this. I mean, can you name any specific business or building that you miss?

It astonishes me sometimes what a bunch of whiners us Londoners are when it comes to new developments. It's a city, not a museum.

Whereas I'm still astonished when I try and couch my opinions on the internet in non-absolutist terms and they're invariably taken as blunt, literal weapons.

I even stated in my first response here that "London doesn't sit still" and that it's "a bit 'too much, too quick'" that concerns me. I wonder if we forgot certain lessons from 60s architectural adventures.

As for an answer to your question - Bagleys and The Cross spring to mind.

Aren't those both clubs?

Not a very impressive response. Clubs often open in run-down or otherwise unattractive areas. They move when the area changes. I don't think we want to keep Kings Cross as a complete poohole just to keep a couple of clubs open. I say this as someone who used to live there. It might be fun for you to go to the run down part of town to go to a trendy club, but it's not so great for people who are in the area on a day-to-day basis.

I can see what you're saying in general, but to use Kings Cross as an example is borderline trolling. No-one misses the old Kings Cross.

> It's a city, not a museum.

Cities like Budapest, Prague, Vienna have quite strict regulations when it comes to buildings. Eg. Budapest still doesn't have anything taller, than 30 tiers.

Respecting and maintaining a certain look doesn't mean it'll become a museum, rather that it has a personality and everyone agreed to keep that personality.

London, at this point, is the other end of this spectrum: no personality, no regulations on look/height/etc based on values. (Sometimes I wonder about regulations at all, knowing the case of the melted Jaguar with the Walkie Talkie: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-23930675 )

It's quite ridiculous to suggest that London doesn't have any regulations on buildings, or that the city doesn't have any personality.

Do you know why the cheese grater is the shape that it is?

> Do you know why the cheese grater is the shape that it is?

I do not.

Personality is an interesting topic. I love Hackney or the area around Wapping; there's certainly a personality around Muswell Hill and Highgate; the Barbican is brilliant and unique, etc. But the Liverpool Street Station area? Nah.

Not that for example Budapest has a face everywhere: it has a decent amount of socialist blocks that you can find anywhere in the former Eastern Block, and a lot of generic housing areas, but the inner circle is quite heavily regulated, especially on the height of buildings.

As for regulations: regulations on what looks are allowed. The question mark for the walkie-talkie was because it's a collector mirror, and whoever designed it should have realized that it's dangerous.

Lots of rules:

https://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/the-122-leadenhall-cheesegr...

I'm sorry that my response to you below isn't 'impressive' enough for you. Must try harder!

Again, you seem to be polarising the engagement here into absolute terms - of course I wouldn't for a second agree with keeping "Kings Cross as a complete poohole just to keep a couple of clubs open", but the loss of those clubs and that culture surrounding it are to my mind indicative of a change in the city that inevitable as it is, is pervasive, permanent and in some ways saddening.

I can't be right or wrong in this opinion, just different to your perspective and that's ok - neither of us need 'win' here.

You're always going to lose something when a city changes. I'm just baffled that your overriding reaction to the changes in Kings Cross is sadness.

I do actually think it's important to keep whining in check because it holds London back. The fact that people are even willing to pretend that they want the old Kings Cross back (lol) is indicative of how deeply ingrained the whining culture is.

Can you point out where I said I want the old king's cross back, please? You seem to continually choose to interpret things in the most polarised terms that fit whatever narrative it is you wish to read.

My stated concern here is in the density and pace of development - the change in what (I feel and believe) should be a more organically-grown locality, rather than some mass vision impressed upon the area.

"Liverpool Street, Kings Cross, Holloway - all places once warm and familiar to me are now cold, oppressive masses of dense, synthetic development."

That seems like a broadly negative reaction to the changes. If you think the changes have been for the worse, then it seems fair to presume that you'd rather they hadn't happened.

If you actually like the changes overall, then we are in agreement.

As for organic change - well, Kings Cross had decades of opportunity to deshitify organically, and it didn't. How long do you wanna wait?

I don't like the changes overall, no. That's where I'm coming from. It is a broadly negative appraisal of these developments which are, to my mind, artificial in the extreme.

But that doesn't mean I 'want the old kx back', it just means I wish it hadn't developed as so.

The front end development of KX itself and St. Pancras is absolutely gorgeous. So too coal drop yard and the area around CSM.

It's the density of high rise apartments around that is, to me, saddening.

- ed

and i mean 'saddening' in a perhaps melancholic whistful way - if it is inevitable and must be so, then so be it. doesn't mean i have to like it. and doesn't mean that my not liking it is in any way relevant.

Kings Cross used to be a humungous shithole so I don't personally see this as a loss.

Holloway has an astonishing - largely untold - 750 year (at least) history of transient development.

The name comes from horse-carts digging such deep ruts in the mud by 1300 it became known as the hollow way.

I love that Joe Meek wrote 'Telstar'[1] from a tiny flat in Holloway. It sounded like the future in 1962, and sounds like the past now. It's the same with the built environment.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B7ypA1fSwU

I worked there around the same time as you and I thought it felt pretty cramped by then already, but nowadays when I end up in that area I almost feel claustrophobic. The city skyline has really changed massively over the past decade..

Reminds me of how I was sad when the bridge for Shoreditch Overground station blocked the Tea Building, but that was before the first Street View image it seems: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5231608,-0.0776078,3a,75y,...

I worked on Gracechurch Street, Bishopsgate, Cannon Street in the early 2000s - all four buildings are gone - 60’s - 80’s structures. Crazy rate of churn.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com