Architecture of London

[1] London's diverse architecture ranges from the Romanesque central keep of The Tower of London, the great Gothic church of Westminster Abbey, the Palladian royal residence Queen's House, Christopher Wren's Baroque masterpiece St Paul's Cathedral, the High Victorian Gothic of The Palace of Westminster, the industrial Art Deco of Battersea Power Station, the post-war Modernism of The Barbican Estate and the Postmodern skyscraper 30 St Mary Axe 'The Gherkin'.

Ancient Welsh legend claims the city of the Trinovantes – dedicated to the god Lud (Caer Llud) – was founded by the followers of Brân the Blessed, whose severed head is said to be buried under the White Tower facing the continent.

With only one bridge for the entire middle-ages, the river Thames was the main means of transportation within the city, as well as providing access to overseas trade by sea; many wharves and quays lined its north bank.Many of medieval London's most significant structures were initially constructed by the Normans in the late 11th and 12th-century.

During this extension an exceptionally wide span hammerbeam roof was added, likely by the King's Master Carpenter William Hurley[20] which is now considered a marvel of medieval engineering, while the Norman outer walls were retained with the addition of gothic windows.

Despite this, Tudor architecture is most closely associated with its distinctive vernacular buildings which were constructed of a timber frame with wattle and daub, which are usually now painted black and white, but were in reality mostly a plain whitewash colour.

In contrast, Old Royal Naval College with its ornate Painted Hall, St Paul's Chapel and symmetrical east and west wings is widely considered the crowning glory of the English Baroque movement.

"[37] Some of his other designs utilise unusual archaeological quotations, most notably St. George's, Bloomsbury which combines a large Corinthian portico resembling a Roman Temple, with a tower topped with a pyramid which is a recreation of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (4th-century BC): one of the Seven Wonders of The Ancient World[37] The six churches not designed by Hawksmoor were by other significant late Baroque and early Georgian architects such as James Gibbs, whose contribution St Mary-le-Strand (1724) now prominently sits on a traffic island on The Strand in front of Somerset House, with a tower that displays a strong Wren influence.

[38] New working-class neighbourhoods associated with industry and shipping also appeared in the late-Georgian era, particularly in the east such as at Limehouse and Shadwell and with the construction of new bridges across the Thames in the mid-18th-centry, the first since the early Middle Ages, the city also began to spread significantly south of the river.

The design utilises the Corinthian order, rustication on the ground floor and neoclassical statues in visual focal points: a far-less austere approach than William Kent's Horse Guards yet by no means opulent.

This greatly increased London's capacity and potential as a port, a direct result of the dramatic accent of Britain's Empire in the 18th-century and the lucrative maritime trade of products from the colonies such as coffee, sugar and tea.

Technically the Regency era only lasted from 1811 to 1820, when the Prince Regent ruled as proxy for his incapacitated father George III, but the distinctive trends in art and architecture extended roughly into the first 40 years of the 19th century.

[49] Regency employed enhanced ornamentation like friezes with high and low relief figural or vegetative motifs, statuary, urns, and porticos, all the while keeping the clean lines and symmetry of early Georgian architecture.

[53][55] These terraces employ all the signature features of Regency Classicism: imposing, temple-like frontages covered in gleaming stucco with projecting porches, porticos with Corinthian or Ionic capitals, large pediments, and figural friezes extending along the upper part of the façades.

[58] It had been demolished in 1826 after the new King, George IV, moved to Buckingham Palace, and Nash was employed to design the three-house terrace in his signature, rigidly Classical style: clad in stucco, with an imposing Corinthian portico, balconies, pediments, and Attic parapet, over a podium with squat Doric columns.

[61] All the hallmarks of Regency Neoclassicism appear, including an encompassing frieze with vegetative scrollwork of Coade stone, balconies accessible from the first floor, and an attic with figural sculptures based on the Elgin Marbles.

All were covered in white-painted stucco, with the entrance to each house featuring projecting Doric porches supporting first floor balconies with tall pedimented windows, and attics resting on cornice-work in the Greek manner.

"[67][citation needed] The growth of the suburbs and the increasing de-population of central London as the 19th century progressed was largely made possible by the arrival of the railways, which enabled workers to live much further from their work places in the city center.

"[76] Modelled in its proportions after Tintern Abbey, and packed with decoration in marble, stone, wrought iron, and oak, the masterpiece of St. Cuthbert's is the 50-foot high wooden reredos carved in an elaborate late-Gothic Spanish style.

[80] The most famous example is The Royal Exchange (1844), which has a main façade comprised of a monumental Corinthian portico which replicates a Roman temple, a clock tower in an English Baroque style on the eastern side of the building and an ornate central courtyard with renaissance influences.

A prominent example of this is Leadenhall Market (1881), whose street facades are evocative of Dutch Baroque architecture, while the interior utilises vibrant colours and a glass ceiling with cast-iron frame in a manner which is loosely Classical in style, but has no historical precedence.

[89] The technological advancements pioneered with the Crystal Palace would be applied to the building of London's great railway termini in the latter half of the century: St. Pancras, Liverpool Street, Paddington, King's Cross, and Victoria.

[90] King's Cross was a relative latecomer; built in 1851 to support incoming traffic for the Crystal Palace exhibition, its arched glass terminal sheds (each 71 ft (22 m) wide) were reinforced with laminated wooden ribs which were replaced in the 1870s with cast iron.

Another notable example - also a pumping station but in this case for drinking water - was The Engine House, Stoke Newington (1854), a large brick building which was designed to resemble a medieval fortress, complete with towers, battlements, bartizans and other historicist elements.

A much more discreet example was the world's first coal-fired power station was built at Holborn Viaduct in 1882, intended to provide electricity for the many new streets lamps being installed in the centre of London, as well as for private homes and other buildings.

In the 1850s, the abolition of tax on glass and bricks made these items cheaper, while suitable materials and the coming of the railways allowed them to be manufactured elsewhere, at low cost and to standard sizes and methods, and brought to site.

[109] This involved the clearance of a notorious Holborn slum known as Clare Market, between Covent Garden and Lincoln's Inn Fields The north side of the Strand was demolished, allowing the street to be widened and more impressive and architecturally sound buildings to be constructed.

[127] Adjacent to the Adelphi, the grand Hotel Cecil (1896) was demolished to make way for Shell Mex House (1931), a 190 ft (58 m) high Art Deco office building which features London's largest clock.

[134] 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[135] or 'raw concrete'.Significant council housing works in London include the Brunswick Centre (1967–72) by Patrick Hodgkinson and the Alexandra Road Estate (1972–78) by Neave Brown of the Camden Council architects department.The British exponents of the internationalist movement were 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[136] (1962–64) 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 negative popular perception of the architecture of the era; this is 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 heroic social constructivism and highly sought-after places of residence.

These were typically built in the corporate International Style, closely associated with the modernist pioneer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, following the simple glass cuboid format of the epochal Seagram Building (1958).

Formed in reaction against the austere modernism which had dominated architectural design since the end of world war II, the postmodern school - which first expressed itself in the controversial book Learning from Las Vegas (1973) by Robert Venturi - was a movement that rejected minimalism by embracing irony, playfulness, pop culture and quoting historical styles in their buildings.