London – City of the Glass
No, it’s not the title of the next Doctor Who Christmas special.
But, hot on the tails of the Gherkin, City Hall and the still forthcoming Bankside 123 architecture foundation and London Bridge Shard, is the newly proposed glass skyscraper at 11-19 Monument St.
It’s another of those multi-use buildings which stops the realists from screaming out in disbelief over more offices being built in Central London that we just don’t need. So you’ll be almost as happy as I am to learn about the roof gardens, the visitor centre for Monument and eye-blindingly-bright light-up front. “Flexible accommodation” also sounds like an extremely interesting concept to me, and if your apartment doesn’t shrink when you exit the front-door, allowing extra space for those inhabitants still occupying the building – frankly, they’ve missed a trick. You wait. It will happen.
An impressive looking plan, all the same – and I look forward to gazing into the ripple-effect facade that starts this Fairground ride for giants. And if that doesn’t work, maybe the reflections from the glass will set fire to Monument. How we’d laugh.