The very unique gouged building in London
More visibly, the odd shapes of many of the City of London’s skyscrapers are guided by their need to dodge the views of St Paul’s. The angular wedge of the Cheesegrater, by Richard Rogers’ firm RSH+P, is so shaped in order to lean out of the view from Fleet Street – fittingly, from just outside Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub.
It was an engineering feat that took twice as much steel as the Eiffel Tower to achieve. Similarly the Scalpel, by KPF, leans in the opposite direction, sloping back to the south in a mirror-image incline, the duo lurching away from the dome as if caught in an awkward dance of social distancing. Perhaps the clumsiest manifestation of all the St Paul’s restrictions comes from French architect Jean Nouvel. His galumphing One New Change shopping centre staggers to the east of the cathedral, twisting and turning its brown glass walls as if drunkenly trying to limbo beneath the height limits.
