The New York Times has slammed London’s skyline as “jarring” and “cacophonous” in what marks the latest jab at the UK from the paper.
In a column titled “‘An Incoherent Riot’: Why London’s Skyline Looks So Weird” by economist Peter Coy, iconic landmarks in the City were slated as “a jumble of children’s building blocks” and a “jarring profusion of odd skyscrapers”.
The column is a critique of London’s apparent bowing to ‘trophy architects’ and suggests that the planning process in the capital is open to misdirection by big names and lobbyists.
But a Mayor of London spokesperson told Coy: “Any suggestion that the profile or reputation of a particular architectural practice has any influence over this decision-making process is false.”
The NYT slammed London landmarks as "jarring", but critics said New York was "incredibly boring"
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Coy praised New York and Chicago for their “rules-based” building regulations, which Bartlett School of Planning professor Peter Rees said was “a bit rich” in a Times article which countered the NYT column.
Prof Rees said New York, in comparison, “gets a lot of incredibly boring buildings” with a building in Hudson Yards the only structure befitting of a nickname like London’s Gherkin, Cheese Grater – “a trash basket”.
Coy said “the world’s most famous architects have used London as a playground, with cacophonous results”, and suggested Londoners were only just beginning to “realise the error of their ways” in another damnation of the capital.
This column is just the latest criticism of the UK and London by the New York Times.
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Coy praised New York and Chicago for their “rules-based” building regulations
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In 2020, the NYT described Brits trying their best to enjoy the heatwave in the first Covid lockdown as having “cavorted” in “swamps” – an editorial line the paper quietly corrected.
In 2018, a food column by Robert Draper called “Beyond Porridge and Boiled Mutton: A Taste of London” revelled in Brexit coming “too late to halt the culinary globalisation of London”.
The article said visitors to London “could always find scattered exceptions” to the capital’s “drab” offerings – “Her Majesty’s customary vittles”, as Draper put it.
Iain Martin said the UK market the NYT wanted is “Britons who can’t stand Britain” and “think the Guardian is way too soft”.
The City of London was slammed for bowing to "trophy architects"
PA
Martin said the NYT used anti-British attack pieces written by “London-based academic[s]” with PhDs in “applied anti-colonialism” who think the “problem with Stalinism is that the old boy didn’t go far enough”.
He noted in Reaction how, in the hours following the Queen’s death, the New York Times was “running a screed from an academic saying the late monarch had helped to cover up the bloody history of colonialism”.
Martin said the people who run the New York Times are aware of an “untapped global market for sanctimonious, hectoring drivel” – which he says “overburdened” the paper’s opinion pages.
But a 2023 Press Gazette interview with outgoing NYT Europe editor Jim Yardley revealed that the paper – or, at least, its senior figures – had a soft spot for fish and chips, and was “extremely proud” of its UK coverage.