When the aircraft flew over London, on a Sunday morning of brilliant sunshine, I was viewing the legendary of capital of fog from the air to find the famous buildings that I saw in books and TV before.
The glittery River Thames offers me an excellent orientation, and I try to match the sight with the map of London in my memory. However, I got lost as the plane circle a bit until I spot “The Swiss Re Tower”, widely known as “The Gherkin”. It seems really prominent in the mass of low masonry building for its distinctive shape and glass curtain wall which looks like crystal. Compared with a similar building in China designed by OMA that is “China Central Television Office Building” called expensive “Big Shorts” sardonically by the natives, “The Gherkin” designed by Foster cares about protecting the environment and saving energy more. Its shape and the spiral lines in the surface are closely contacted with not only the energy-efficient systems of whole building, but also its structure.
Walking through the town, the pervasive masonry buildings and irregular road forks surround me like a huge maze, and I always lose mu bearing. When I attempt to identify the road through finding the characters of buildings, the multifarious details confuses me more. There are lines and Angles, various column types and intricate decoration everywhere and I nearly cannot recognize which styles they belong to even though I am an architect, which makes me so sad. I think I have to relearn European architecture styles and history according to the living classical architecture of London.
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