The Architecture Of Bling Comes To Brompton Road

Dean Nicholas
By Dean Nicholas Last edited 161 months ago

Last Updated 11 November 2010

The Architecture Of Bling Comes To Brompton Road

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The "Brompton Diamond", pictured above, a nine-story residential building, has been approved by Kensington & Chelsea council. As the name would suggest, it'll be built on Brompton Road, just a short distance from Harrods and the upmarket stores of Knightsbridge.

Curiously, this isn't the first diamond-shaped building that London will welcome in the next few years — a hotel to be built in Hoxton will have similar contours — yet it might seem appropriate that the bling is being built in one of London's wealthiest burgs. Is London ready for such a morphologically literal approach to the built environment? Tower Hamlets were at it earlier this year, trying to construct a headscarf-shaped sculpture at the entrance to Brick Lane, and quite how Shoreditch residents will welcome being associated with a dustbin-shaped hotel on Old Street remains to be seen.