Exploring the City of London

London Architecture

by Nick Arioli

Up until the 1830's London was by far the most plain of itself, Paris and Vienna. The harsh control of External ornamentation by acts in 1707, 1709, and a greate one in 1774 greatly limited building materials and forced adonments to be kept to a minimum. Most of London's townhouses which would also become most its shops were constucted of a drab gray brick. But even with these restrictions, London could have been far more elaborate than it was. There are several reasons that it was such a poor looking rick city. The first is that the power in London was so well split up and controlled, that great interventions by the monarchy were both frowned upon, and difficult to afford. The church of England didn't have the money or the will for mjajor building projects. Another big reason that especially the center of London was so plain in the 1830's was because so much of the building was happening outside the city. Many of the richer residents of London spent so much of their money on their country houses that beutification of their city dwellings became impossible. Even the governemtne ran into this same problem, spending far too much money maintaining castles of hampton Court and Windsor palaces. It would take a great amount of persuasion by George IV to get even the royal palace rebuilt inside the city.

Regen street is perehaps the most interesting example of London as a plain yet rich city. Regent street stretches through a great part of the city, but not in a straight line, it in fact weaves its way through curves and squares, giving the pedestrian a more exciting walk. When it was constructed, the old townhouses taht made up most of the shops were felt to be inadequate to convey the wealth of what this street was to become. So the sides of the streets are actually much nicer than the rest of the city. This proved to greatly increase both the beauty and value of Regen Street, but even the property around it. Even with Regents Stree though, London up to 1830 was a very rich city, that didn't show very much of its wealth.