1 New Change, Jean Nouvel

The pre-opening advertising for 1 New Change traded on the views of St Paul’s from the bars and restaurants of its roof terrace. The terrace was open, although nothing else was; and still isn’t even now. It was a cheap trick. But there’s more to this caper; perhaps even a thinly veiled insult dressed up as architectural homage.

Like Jean Nouvel, it seems to be trying very hard to be liked by everyone. Pointless glass canopies: check. Medieval street ‘plan’: check. Blingy bits on the interior: check. Contorting itself towards St Paul’s in an apparent act of obeisance: check.

But here’s the rub: on the eastern elevation a deep cleft in the mass offers up a view of the cathedral from a pair of glass lifts as well as a nasty ramping enclosure to the escalator head. The result is that the building appears to open its legs, (or is that its buttocks?) in a gesture that seems all too obvious. Was it deliberate, or a Freudian design slip welling up from a dark chauvinistic place; or, more likely, just a naff stunt like the advertising? Ian Nairn is turning in his grave.