"The City of London is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." - Hunter S. Thompson

This week's instalment of "walking around judging buildings on entirely shallow aesthetic criteria" takes us to the City of London aka the Square Mile, possibly the world's highest concentration of pustulent capitalist evil in the smallest area (one square mile, in fact). While Canary Wharf (which we'll come to later, do not fret) has become synonymous with Thatcherism in the 80s and beyond, the City is still rooted in older forms of capitalism and a fascinating array of arcane symbols and rituals. This crisp clear afternoon could get a bit Fortean. Each one of the planned stops is the work of Eric Parry, an architect Strategies would categorise as distinctly "mid", but there will be plenty of marvels and oddities to enjoy in between.

Strategies decided to do this one in reverse order to the pamphlet so as to prepare for the walk with a serious bit of lunch at that great City institution Assenheims 56. Real heads know the best lunchtime feed is at this purveyor of marinaded chicken and Uruguayan beef sandwiches, not Pret or Itsu or any other weirdly clinical grub chain.

First stop, 10 Paternoster Square, aka the London Stock Exchange. An elegant if somewhat humdrum edifice - as to be expected from a development completed this side of Y2K really. In common with every other soulless, joyless after-work joint anyone who's worked in the City will know all too well, the bar/restaurant on the ground floor has been gussied up with a floral arrangement befitting a budget funeral, and, oh, what's this? Pop-up food stalls in garden sheds? What will these mavericks come up with next! Oh yeah, and you can see that famous cathedral thing or whatever.

Unsubtly parked spaceship or long-abandoned Slug & Lettuce? The latter, it turns out:

One of those peculiar City traditions alluded to earlier is the naming of financial institutions after the most ludicrous and implausible pairs of surnames Chat GPT can scrape from the phone book:

Interesting roof perch above Mansion House tube station:

Heavy metal on the corner of Queen Vic St:

I couldn't go past the delightfully named No. 1 Poultry, a James Stirling design brought to life after his death, without getting a few snaps. For many years it has been rumoured to be a favourite site for bankers to quietly see themselves out after the enormity of their own crimes finally dawns on them.

Credit where due, the next Parry creation on the tour is definitely my kind of hulking brute. According to the guide, 60 Threadneedle Street was carefully wedged in between two existing buildings, and the dark, litter-strewn cracks in between them certainly fires up the imagination. Whose bodies might be tucked away in there?

The former NatWest Tower, which has a tenuous link to our parent brand Mr Internet dot biz:

Not a bad attempt at prettying up a corporate glass & steep monolith, if your target audience is 5 years old:

Google Maps, helpfully, can't tell one end of 5-7 St Helen's place from the other, but after a bit of back and forth we found Parry's 2018 addition to this historic site. The guide informs me it has been home to a BDSM collective called "The Leathersellers Company" since 1543 - underground kink clubs are another key plank in the City's rich tapestry of traditions and rituals.

Just around the corner we find a strong contender in the crowded field that is "the worst pile of shit Norman Foster has ever designed". You might know it as "30 St Mary Axe" or "The Gherkin". Some Eric Parry's designs may be mid at best, but as far as Strategies is aware he has yet to squat over the London skyline and curl out any steamers so vile as Foster's gherkins or city halls. There is, of course, nothing but love on this blog for Dick Rogers' nearby Lloyd's Building:

Our next stop was 15 storeys up an office building. The Fen Court roof garden was completed in 2018, in the thick of an era which, if memory serves, saw rooftop parties become a citywide obsession. This garden proved to be mercifully free of tech house DJs and garden shed cocktail bars, instead offering the simple pleasures of sunshine, foliage, a breeze and a spectacular view of London.

Note the sinister, Gotham-ass building between the crane and the Shard. That right there is Minster Court, a shamelessly evil-looking beast constructed by Gollins, Melvin and Ward (again, nobody can seriously expect us to believe these are real names) between 1987 and 1993. If, like Strategies, you're looking at this thing and fancying that it might make a fine lair for your supervillain arc, you'll be disappointed to learn that it was already claimed by Cruella de Vil in the 1996 live action remake of 101 Dalmatians. Please ignore that wonky bit of Viñoly junk in the background, the man simply could not control himself.

Sights seen along the walk to the final stop:

And finally we come to the Southwark Gateway Needle, supposedly intended to point towards freedom from a hard day's slog in the City (for anyone who lives south of the river, at least). With dusk beginning to set in Strategies took the opportunity to snap a few other intriguing constructions around London Bridge, including Colechurch House which is valiantly trying to make one last stand before the wrecking ball with the almost comically unappealing promise of a rooftop bar where one can presumably enjoy a view of vacant offices across the road in the Shard.

This is Strategies Against Architecture concluding another walkabout in Southwark SE1. Until next time.