Canary Wharf looks like the future. Or the future as it was imagined in 1981. It’s a world where walls are made of glass, where shops are subterranean, commutes are made on monorails and where genetically engineered human replicants are manufactured by mega corporations.
Ok so that last bit might not be true.
My attempted vortograph of clocks and workers at Canary Wharf’s Canada Square.
But London’s modern financial district, which was built on East London’s old docklands, is still a mesmerising place to walk around. Gaze up at some of the UK’s tallest towers and cross neat squares of grass and rectangles of water.
Made of stainless steel and tinted glass, Canary Wharf’s buildings reflect the streets below, making fractured collages in their mirrored walls. On Monday morning people in smart black coats and Nike trainers rush out of the stations, ready to change their shoes at their desks. On Friday nights ties are off and crowds gather around the heaters outside All Bar One overlooking Middle Dock. On a Saturday afternoon it’s eerily quiet.
Sitting at the front of the Docklands Light Railway and pretending you’re the driver is a tourist attraction in itself. Here it is pulling into Heron Quays underneath the J P Morgan building.
Before there was The Shard there was One Canada Square (middle). Better known as the Canary Wharf building with the flashing light on top, it was the UK’s tallest tower when it opened in 1991. Based on New York’s Three World Financial Centre, Prince Charles (not known for his love of contemporary architecture at the best of times) said of it “I personally would go mad if I had to work in a place like that”.
There’s plenty of reasons to hate Canary Wharf. It was the first example of public space in the UK being handed over to private ownership (it’s managed by the Canary Wharf Estate, who controversially took out an injunction to keep out Occupy London protesters in 2011.)
The architecture is inhuman in its scale and and casts streets into shade. But I can’t help but like it, there’s nowhere else in London where you can pretend you’re in a sci-fi movie afterall.
Checking phones on the way down into Canary Wharf station, Cathedral-esque with its grand domed roof.
Vortograph of clocks outside One Canada Square marking quarter to nine.
Looking up from the shopping centre underneath Canary Wharf.
The party at All Bar One on a Friday night.
Along with the height of the buildings, the facade starts to slip as you move towards South Quay and Westferry Road. Rubbish begins to appear on the street. Glass turns to brick. The future ends here.
How to get there: Jubilee Line to Canary Wharf, or DLR to Heron Quays or South Quay.
OuterLimits 