The Boom Bust Binge
In the late eighties there was a huge unpresedented building spree all over the City new
developments were built, but because of a number of reasons, none of them were high
rise, apart from Lloyds. During the eighties, personal computers became a must in the
work place, and that changed the nature of the space. Where previously floors of
private offices were needed, now vast trading floors were necessary. Unlike New
York, which coped with this within high rises, London did not as such large towers
would look totally out of place. Developers now needed large areas of land and
Broadgate was perfect, there, over the railway tracks was built the City�s largest ever
single development of 5million sq ft, designed by S.O.M, it was their first stint in
Post-Modernism.
Another important factor in the fact that no high rises were built in the City was Prince
Charles� sudden appearance on the architectural scene. He stubbornly fought againts
what he called the �uglification� (I find that an incredibly tacky word) of London and
demanded, somewhat unrealistically that buildings once again be built in the classicist
style.
The most dramatic and controversial new building of the eighties was Richard Roger�s
H.Q for Lloyd�s of London (275ft). In the high-tech style for which he is known,
Richard Rogers placed all of the service utilites on the exterior of the building allowing
for a large, flexible area on the inside of the building. The building is now a London
landmark.
In the 1980s there were a number of rejected proposals. The most prolonged of all was
the Mansion House scheme, a 290ft glass tower designed by Mies Van Der Rohe in the
early 1960s for an extremely prominent and sensitive site directly opposite the Royal
Exchange and the Bank and next to the Mansion House. After a public enquiry the
Secretary of State rejected the plan.
In 1981 the Thatcher Government established the London Docklands Development
Corporation (LDDC) to revitalize the run-down and abandoned Docklands of east
London, a huge area of 8.5 square miles on both sides of the river. The LDDC could
set up special tax free Enterprise Zones.
At the heart of the Docklands effort has been the office project at Canary Wharf in the
Isle of Dogs. Developed by the Reichman Bros of Olympia & York in 1987 when
demand for office space was skyrocketing. By 1991 phase 2 and most of phase 1 were
finished, but the bottom fell out of the market and the development went into
recievership. An anchor tower of 50flrs (800ft) and eight smaller buildings had been
completed totalling 4.5million ft, about a quarter of the final amount of space in the
project.
Until 1996 vacancy rates in Canary Wharf were around 60%, but after 1996, they went
down to circa 98%, and now Canary Wharf is the centre of another boom in the
London real-estate market, with new buildings going up in the project and new
developments surrounding it.
