The skyscraper formerly known as Bishops Place has been green-lighted by Hackney council.
Re-christened Principal Place, the scheme is a long-running, and controversial, project to erect a tiered, 50-storey residential skyscraper and smaller office block, designed by Norman Foster’s firm, on a bit of land just north of the Bishopsgate Tower, at the dividing line where Shoreditch and the City of London scrape uncomfortably against eachother. The site is currently home to an urban golf course, which to judge from the render won’t survive.
The development has long proved controversial: local conservation groups were unhappy at the Square Mile’s encroachment onto a heritage area, and the original plan called for the destruction of the Light Bar, housed in a 19th century electricity substation on the site. Happily, the building was saved, but the scheme, in a modified form, looks set to go ahead. It lacks a nickname, though anybody thinking ‘graphic equaliser’ should know that a pair of similarly-profiled buildings in Canary Wharf have already pinched that name.
