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How They Ruined London

TGTC: Architecture & Urbanism

10,757 views

How did a 2,000-year-old imperial capital go from majestic churches and historic plazas to glass beehives, motorcycle cylinder blocks, and tuna cans?

In this episode, we explore the bizarre architectural transformation of London. From the devastating destruction of the Blitz to the rise of post-war Brutalism and high-tech skyscrapers, why does one of the world's greatest cities look the way it does?

It turns out the answer isn’t just modern greed or post-war urgency: it goes all the way back to Henry VIII, John Calvin, Oliver Cromwell, and a deep-seated cultural shift that forever altered how Britain viewed visual art and architecture.

Join us as we explore the tragic, comical, and baffling history of Londinium’s built environment, from Sir Christopher Wren's rejected master plans to a £39 Ferris wheel becoming the city’s ultimate symbol.

In this video:

· Why post-WW2 London didn't rebuild like Warsaw or Dresden
· The surprising Calvinist & Puritan roots of English architectural indifference
· The tragic stories of Sir Christopher Wren, John Soane, & Augustus Pugin
· How unelected bureaucrats and ultra-luxury "investment" towers changed the skyline
· Why the London Eye became the definitive symbol of a 2,000-year-old city

If you enjoyed the video, don't forget to Like, Subscribe, and share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Chapters:

00:00 What Happened to London?
01:23 London Before World War II
02:19 The Blitz and Post-War Prefab Housing
03:48 Why London Refused Restoration
05:12 Henry VIII, Calvinism, and Puritanism
09:06 Literature & Science over Visual Arts
11:28 Oliver Cromwell and the "Rule of the Saints"
15:36 London’s Tragic Architectural Geniuses
20:32 The 7-Year Architect Pipeline
22:42 Westminster Abbey to QEII Centre
25:00 High-Rise Investments & The Real London Bridge
27:28 The London Eye: A Ferris Wheel as a Capital's Symbol
29:06 - Conclusion & Outro

20 Comments

@TheGoodTasteChannel Creator 2 months ago Pinned

What’s the single worst architectural offender in modern London? Is it the Walkie Talkie, the Gherkin, or the £39 Ferris wheel? Let me know your thoughts (or your defense of British Brutalism!) in the comments below.

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@eriklomeland3278 2 months ago

I have to agree, many of the modern buildings do look like giant air-conditioning equipment. Lloyds of London seemed to establish the trend in the 80s. While the occasional modern building can provide contrast to the old, London's down town is resembling an overgrown weed patch of crass steel and glass

@KyoushaPumpItUp 2 months ago

You're going to have a nightmare studying how WW2 ruined Manila.

@clemfandango619 2 months ago (edited)

It's deliberate. Stupid buildings make you feel less serious about the place you live

@xXBeethovenXx 2 months ago

From the beauty of Wren's work to spiritually dead pickles made out of glass and craftwire

@majorhumbert676 2 months ago

I was in London and it was really sad: medieval and victorian buildings surrounded by tall glass and steel. Many of the few remaining Victorian buildings had notices on the door, stating that they'd be demolished.

@davidbrims5825 2 months ago

The skyline looks like a set of broken teeth.

@Stelios.Posantzis 2 months ago

Good call picking London, but don't forget they have already ruined much of London and other towns in the fifties and sixties by demolishing plenty of old landmark buildings and entire blocks and neighbourhoods. A particularly horrid practice is that of completely altering the ground (street) floor to fit modern shops with the desired exterior/façade as is gutting whole buildings and keeping only the token façade.

@mikeifyouplease 2 months ago

P.S. Your video was so entertaining and educational,
that I was personally FORCED to watch it a second time!

@CrazyBrosCael 2 months ago

I would’ve been fine if they built the skyscrapers AWAY from the old city. The Tower of London & St Paul’s use to dwarf everything else in their day, but are now overshadowed by these non-human proportioned monoliths of glass & steel. No respect to the urban environment was given.

@DeUz-yw4lg 2 months ago

The Text-to-speech inserts are amazing, nobody tell him anything

@zzerxes 1 month ago

You are my favorite architectural historian

@DODO-vy6sf 1 month ago

“The Only Way is Up” was the title page of Daily Telegraph one day some twenty years ago. Back then the London skyline was still acceptable and arguably recognisable - The Gherkin, The Lloyds’, The NatWest .. The Shard was still a towering, rather sinister, building site, exactly as tall as the Eiffel Tower.
Twenty years on … London and Canary Wharf were swarmed with ugly, plastic-looking towers that absolutely engulfed the older city underneath. You look up, and it could be anywhere else in the world. It could be Dubai. It could be Mumbai. This is what the did with London.

@issaraerae 2 months ago

Its Manhattanization

Everyone (non urbanist) seems to think becoming like Manhattan is a success. From Miami to Dubai, from Panama to Manila

@JeffSatterfield-y5w 2 months ago

Elizabeth and Spain: the Spanish king married "Bloody Mary" and after her death he felt sort of entitled. It's complicated, but he did try to invade the place.

@greentown2050 2 months ago

I'm surprised I couldn't find your channel sooner. Your ideas, I think, are simply brilliant, and, what's more, they're incredibly relevant for future architects.
I discovered your channel and am watching it with great interest from the distant metallurgical city of Zaporizhzhia (southern Ukraine), built in the neoclassical style in the 1950s by our great architect Wegman.
Despite Putin's bombs and missiles falling here five times a day, they've only hit its architecture twice, but thank God, everything has now been restored to its original state.

@sergpie 2 months ago

London has been thoroughly internationalized; in politic, in demographic, and in aesthetic.

@skibidi.G 1 month ago

Fantastic presentation 👍👍

@li_Mareschal 2 months ago (edited)

As a Londoner the city I was born into in 2006 feels like a ruin, so much of it is run down and it feels incredibly disordered. Not just in the old city but also the suburbs you see how beautiful it all looked, with order and cleanliness before the second world war. Not to mention it really isn’t an English city, it’s a nondescript capital zone for any international hedonist.

The skyscrapers hurt me, they feel so against the English spirit and are more akin to dark, satanic mills spoken of in Jerusalem. They are like jagged cold beans straight from Hades.

What is a true sign of the times is that Church that got moved, a medieval church moved aside for an awful skyscraper.

@f104G 2 months ago

My granny used to live in a prefab in south London, then she was moved across the street to a new council house. The prefabs were still there twenty years later, before finally being demolished. In other places prefabs are still being lived in today.