The Burnside Blog

Posted By Mike Thelin on 02/05/2008

Prince Charles lobbed a grenade last week at European architects by dubbing the wave of high-rise development that London has embraced as a “rash of carbuncles.” Still, the semantics of the future king hardly differ from those echoed by PDX residents whenever a proposal outsizes the built environment of an established neighborhood. Even though we design enthusiasts tend to idealize places like London, Basel and Rotterdam, the response of Prince Charles is just one example that NIMBYism is alive and well on both sides of the Atlantic, and increasingly so.

London, like most large cities in the West, has seen an overwhelming amount of vertical growth. And in Madrid, Malmo and Frankfort, skyscrapers are increasingly part of the mix. In London, Renzo Piano’s proposed Shard, a 72-story tower that resembles a wedge of broken glass, is the most controversial.

The Guardian’s Will Alsop chimes in:

“As architects, we share many of the prince’s historical, heritage and environmental concerns, but we are also in the business of trying to create a new, responsible heritage that reflects the culture of today.”

So at least Europe’s cultural class are behind the skyscraping of London, right? Not really.

Check out The Guardian’s Michele Hanson’s editorial in today’s Guardian:

“Who wants to live vertically? Nobody I know. But my joy was short-lived. Another idiot stepped in to fund the dreaded Shard.”

Migration toward large cities is a global phenomena that’s no longer just a trend in the developing world. And as cities grow taller to accommodate population growth, the debate over density will heat up.

How shall we handle it in PDX?