Why’s London Not Making The Tulip Skyscraper?

The city of London is timeless and ephemeral even. It’s also a standing testimony to timeless design and a plethora of architectural wonders. You think of London and you think of timeless jewels that have, over the years gone on to become, the beating heart of the city. You think of the Buckingham Tower, the old and famous London Clock, the Kensington Palace, The Shard, and the timeless Big Ben- do you not?

But one among its long list of wonders, it was thought, would have been a brand new addition. They were calling it the famous Tulip Tower and once complete, it would’ve added nicely to London‘s skyline. But then something fell apart.

Sadly, the construction of the impending Tulip Tower wasn’t thought of being as pragmatic as what one would’ve thought in the first place.

Which is why the famous construction project isn’t coming to life at all and may actually never.

There are several reasons apparently that have thrown the ambitious project of Tulip Tower off the m

So what really happened?

Make no mistakes. The denial toward the construction of the Tulip Tower is not random news; there are reasons for rejecting the plans included the following as per a news report published recently by the BBC:

• The Tower of London, which well is such an essential world site, so to speak, in the city of London would actually find its view hampered and so would the other nearby sites if the Tower of London was to actually come up- experts suggest!

• The Tulip Tower, once complete, would actually have turned out a bit different and perhaps even less cohesive standing besides the other local buildings, it is alleged.

• Now, by using vast quantities of reinforced concrete for the foundations and lift shaft, the overall concept would have become what can be safely called “highly unsustainable!”

All of that said, the following inputs were published on BBC news website with regads to the Tulip Tower news:

Mr Khan previously cited a number of concerns raised in a London Review Panel report in 2019, which said it would harm the skyline and had few public benefits.

Having said that, there was also a statement that was furnished for the public domain by the office of the Mayor of the city of London on the subject of the Tulip Tower. The following is what it had to say:

A spokesman for the mayor’s office said: “Sadiq has long argued that the proposed tower would be little more than a concrete lift shaft with a viewing gallery at the top, offering very little in terms of benefits for Londoners, with no new office space or housing.”

Having said that, while to many it would have certainly seemed a bit of a dampener in that such a promising and widely anticipated real estate project did not come to life, what’s also important is to ponder about the fact that what if Tulip Tower could have been constructed after all but would have lacked the design aesthetics based on the climate science that today’s mega infrastructure projects so keenly need? Just what would’ve happened then, and more importantly, what would that have been- a loss of sorts or a gain of a kind having compromised green building design?