Regent Street was proposed by John Fordyce in 1793. It was at its most basic idea, a long street that would connect Marylebone Park (later Regent Park) to the Carlton House. This was to be Londons only boulevard. John Nash was the architect selected to design and oversee the construction of the street, and by 1811, his plan for Regent Street was finished. Due to the economic and political situation, No single body had the power to plow through the upper class houses near the West End of London, so Regent Street was forced to become a very twisty road. Nash had to contend with the economic differences he faced at the site, aristocracy on the east side of the future street, and poverty on the west side(for a more in depth look at why regent street is shaped like this, click here). The crooked nature of the street proved to be one of Nash's biggest challenges, which he overcame by focusing the street on several "events" along its path, as opposed to attempting to unify the street as was the standard in baroque or houssmann planning. Thus, a walk along Regent street when it was finally consructed in 1823, created a series of exciting, yet very different views. "to the late Georgian eye the equally varied but more coherent way in which the idividual shopfront in Regent Street was subbordinated to the overall design scheme came as an aesthetic revelaion." (Donald Olsen) Today, Regent Street is even less uniform, because many of the original matching facades have been removed, yet the street still works, because it was designed to look good, even if it didn't look cohesive.
