Property companies have always liked to put the best possible gloss on their proposals – views taken from angles that minimise their bulk, atmospheric effects in their images that make many tonnes of construction materials melt into the air. A virtuoso example was recently presented at Liverpool Street station by Sellar Property Group, which brought us the Shard, in a brief “public consultation” about its grand plans for the venerable terminus.
The proposal, designed by the architects Herzog and de Meuron, is to put a colossal chunk of real estate above the station concourse and the neighbouring listed Great Eastern hotel, replacing the former’s Victorian-style vault and blocking out the daylight that percolates through it. But you’d be hard pressed to comprehend its impact from the computer-generated images that were on show or the accompanying video and virtual reality walk-through. There was a model that didn’t include several storeys of the new block. In the visuals a dazzling luminosity suffused the no-longer-daylit concourse. The new work was represented as a white substance impervious to weather and dirt. Trees were shown flourishing in overshadowed locations where they would struggle to grow.
