I have been following the City’s plans to demolish the old Museum of London building with increasing concern. When it was first proposed, there was a logic to it. It was being sacrificed to build a new concert hall. But when the concert hall collapsed, the City replaced it with plans for two massive, out-of-scale office blocks totally out of sympathy with the immediately adjacent Barbican, not to mention St. Paul’s. Diller Scofidio + Renfro are in many ways interesting and creative architects. They were partially responsible for the Highline. But they have been made to flip their scheme into something entirely different which has zero legitimacy and is totally hostile to its location.
If Chris Hayward as chairman of the City’s Policy Committee is sensible, he will ask them to re-invent the project in such a way as to preserve the existing Powell & Moya buildings. Times have changed since 2013 when the project was first proposed.
One way forward would be to create an Architecture Museum.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
So pleased to read your article as last Thursday I read a press release from the City of London announcing that they had plannng permission for this ,and justifying in a ridiculous manner why they had to demolish rather than alter and forecasting that there would be a great need for much more office space in the city?
There still is a big risk that the plans are approved because the City won’t like that their plans have been called in by Gove. Charles