For all its manifest charms, contemporary London is not a city whose recent developments would lead one instinctively to describe it as beautiful. London’s skyline, still lopsided from the Walkie Talkie, has since lurched from one high-rise eyesore to another with nowhere from Bloomsbury to Barking safe.
Quiet classical buildings like M&S’s flagship Marble Arch store and swathes of Edwardian Fleet Street frontages are either inexplicably threatened with demolition or have already succumbed to the wrecking ball.
