Weird as it sounds, Michael Gove is currently some omniscient deemster of London — at least when it comes to the capital's architecture.
As Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, it is Gove who has been hovering over controversial schemes such as the proposed demolition of the art deco M&S at Marble Arch (Spoiler alert: it's being demolished) and whether or not the Stratford Sphere would go ahead. (Spoiler alert: it isn't going ahead).
Now, Gove is flexing over the London Wall West development, aka the proposed regeneration of part of the Barbican complex. The City of London Corporation has just officially approved the planned redevelopment of 140 and 150 London Wall, that is, Bastion House and the former Museum of London). It says the bulldozers will be set on these two 1970s Powell & Moya-designed veterans by 2028, and Sheppard Robson and Diller Scofidio + Renfro's swish-looking 13 and 16-storey office buildings — along with fresh green public space, elevated walkways and 'flexible space for cultural use' — will appear in their place in 2033. We can't deny the mock-ups look rather tasty.
But it's not game, set and match: Architects Journal reports that Gove has put a last-minute pause on the plans, with an Article 31 'Holding Directive'. While Gove doesn't exactly have a track record of making great decisions all the time (like when he decided Boris Johnson should be PM before remembering a few days later that Johnson was actually totally unfit for office), the intervention will be welcome from many — not least the Barbican Quarter Action , who've been fighting tooth and nail to save the current buildings, and have them revamped instead.
It isn't just architecture that the anti-new development camp are trying to save; they also want to stop the huge amounts of carbon emissions that'd be expelled with a rip-it-up-and-start-again jobbie. Gove has similar concerns, and his Holding Directive stops the plans in their tracks, until he decides whether a review of the redevelopment should be launched.
In the meantime, the City of London Corporation seems pretty confident that it has listened to public voices, tweaked the master plans (with a 43% increase in public realm), and that the new development will indeed go ahead. It tells us: "Today's resolution to grant permission for the London Wall West proposals brings us closer to our goal of meeting demand for 1.2 million square meters of new office space by 2040... The City of London is a global economic powerhouse, and it is vital we continue to signal to investors that we are keeping it that way, by delivering a centre of collaboration and innovation for the hundreds of thousands of people who work here."
At Londonist, we're split on this one: some of us are practically salivating over the verdant new mock-ups; others think there's life in the former Museum of London and Bastion House yet — and that retrofitting is the answer. By the time anything starts moving on this one though, even if there still is a Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, it very possibly won't be Michael Gove.
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