The cover of a book cataloguing an exhibition of Santiago Calatrava’s 1996 proposal for City Point…

ALTThe cover of a book cataloguing an exhibition of Santiago Calatrava’s 1996 proposal for City Point (then with a space), A new Tower for the City, taken from an AbeBooks listing.This was the start of the process of reworking Britannic House, the 1960s tower. The spire and platform fell foul of London’s planning rules - specifically, one of the protected view of St Paul’s Cathedral, which the tower would have interfered with - and Calatrava left the project, leaving Sheppard Robson to step in. They kept most of the lower level changes - you can see the arch used prominently in Citypoint’s current website - but the higher details got replaced with a much smaller vertical extension, and the “rail” detail.ALTGiven the developments in London in the thirty years since this proposal, I have to wonder whether the spire might have been approved if it were submitted more recently, or whether the City of London would still reject it for being outside the eastern City cluster.