The outlandish plans for London that almost got built
These images are just a glimpse of an article written by Douglas Murphy for the Guardian about some ill-fated projects that could have transformed London. From a rival to the Eiffel Tower that would have dwarfed the Shard, the Covent Garden redevelopment, the London Ringways, the Fun Palace project to a circular airport perched over King’s Cross station.
Image1: Hook New Town would have been a commuter town for London designed to relieve the population stress on the capital. Photograph: GLC/Steve Collins/smallritual
Image2: A model of one of Cedric Price’s designs for a Fun Palace. Photograph: Collection Centre Canadien d'Architecture, Montréal
Image3: Architect Charles Glover with a model for an airport to be built above King’s Cross. Photograph: Planet News Archive/SSPL via Getty
Here’s an extract related to the project of Hook New Town (image1)
“In the 1960s, a team of ambitious young designers put together a plan for a new town in Hampshire, to relieve London’s population. It was one of most radical bedroom community settlements proposed in the era: a small, super-dense city of modern houses, where pedestrians and vehicles were completely segregated, and paths ran through parkland to an integrated central complex that contained all the civic and economic functions of the town.
It was passed over, but the book describing these proposals, The Planning of a New Town, would go on to be influential for planners across the world. Perhaps it’s a good thing Hook New Town was never built, though: its closest relative, Cumbernauld in Scotland, has since become a laughing stock famed for the dismalness of its very own concrete town centre. “