Capital Inflation London

December 9, 2018 Posted by: Loanable Category: Blog

TheLoanablecontent team have partnered with brilliant, emerging artist, Guangyu Li. He created a wonderland for us by making the most memorable buildings of our great metropolis appear as if they are filled with hot air. He had fun re-inventing their colour palettes and adding some imaginary structures as well. You can click on each of our 10 famous buildings and one famous park to see their incredible detail in close-up – and to discover amusing and little known facts.

Using a frankly insane amount of maths and formulas, we also try to add up the cost of re-imagining the whole of inner London – and its landmark structures – as entirely inflatable versions of themselves. As you can imagine, this requires a step in to the unknown as no one can know for certain what this would cost. But we spent an incredible amount of time trying!

We also ask you to let us know which absent building is crying out to be made inflatable and we will add the most popular choice to our cityscape. We also want to know what people think is Guangyu’s best work – and we will re-create it as a real-life inflatable and present it to the building in question.

Below, we delve deeper in to our building’s and park’s most interesting, unusual and amusing facts...

The Gherkin During The Gherkin’s construction, the body of a Roman woman was unearthed which was over 1500 years old. It was temporarily moved to the Museum of London, then returned from whence it came at the foot of the building upon its completion. The Gherkin’s architect is the much-lauded Sir Norman Foster who was also behind iconic builds such as the restructured German Reichstag, the Millennium Bridge and the second incarnation of Wembley Stadium. Also known as “The Cigar”, The Gherkin is trumped in the most-amusing- nickname- for-a-building stakes by The House of World Cultures art museum in Berlin. Locals refer to it as “The Pregnant Oyster”.

The Olympic Stadium Costing £500 million (which would just about get you 3 penthouses in One Hyde Park) the stadium was completed in 2011, ahead of the London Olympic and Paralympic Games of 2012. It is now home to West Ham United FC as well as hosting live music and other sporting events. During the 2012 Olympics, 3 World Records and 4 Olympic records were broken at the stadium. During the Paralympics later that summer, 73 athletes set world records at the venue. Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, where the Olympic Stadium is housed, was one of London’s most ambitious and expensive development projects, costing £12 billion, taking 10 years to complete and requiring 80,000 workers.

Tower Bridge One of London’s most iconic structures, Tower Bridge is often mistakenly referred to as London Bridge which is, in fact, about 1/5 mile upstream. The open walkways along the top of the bridge made it very popular with pickpockets and prostitutes at around the turn of the 19th century and so they were duly closed off from 1910-1985. In 1977, the bridge was painted red, white and blue to celebrate the Queen’s centenary.

Richmond Park The park has its own Police Force who, amongst other things, strongly disapprove of duck chasing. In 2012, a dog owner was fined £315 for allowing his canines to pursue a duck. Punishable acts in the park also include mushroom picking and cycling faster than 30mph. Ducks aside, the park also provides an important sanctuary for many species of animal, including parakeets, butterflies, snakes and stag beetles. Richmond Park is home to National Trust Property, Ham House, built in 1610. This may be said to be an unfortunate name for a venue that has theatrical productions as one of its principal concerns.

The Shard The Shard was initially conceived as a sketch on the back of a napkin by its architect, Renzo Piano. However, as he understandably points out, this was to spare non of the rigour that lay ahead in the construction of a building requiring 54,000 m3 of concrete. Standing at 309.6 meters (or 1,016 feet), The Shard is the tallest building in the United Kingdom and the fourth tallest building in Europe. The Shard is one of the greenest and most energy-efficient buildings in London. It operates with a combined heat and power plant and converts fuel to electricity, considerably softening its carbon footprint.

Tate Britain Tate Britain houses work by British masters John Constable and John Sergeant and leading 20th century British artists Francis Bacon, L.S. Lowry, David Hockney and Tracy Emin. There are also works by iconic European painters including Henri Matisse, Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso Amongst The Tate’s collection is Picasso’s revered work, Weeping Woman. Another version of the painting was the subject of a high profile art theft from a gallery in Melbourne, Australia, in 1986. The work was subsequently found in a railway station locker. The record price for a work of art was set in 2017 when Christie’s auction house in New York sold Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of Christ ‘Salvator Mundi’ for $450.3 million. It had once been sold for just $60.

The Royal London Hospital The hospital examined the murder victims of the infamous Jack The Ripper whose crimes were also known as “The Whitechapel Murders”. The “Royal” part of the hospital’s title was conferred by the Queen in 1990 to commemorate its 250th anniversary. One of the hospital’s most famous employees was nurse, Edith Cavell, 1865-1915. She was esteemed for the medical help she would give soldiers in need during the First World, irrespective of whether they were British allies or enemies. To much condemnation, she was executed by a German firing squad for helping allies flee occupied Belgium.

St Paul’s Cathedral It was the tallest building in London for over 250 years, between 1710 and 1962. To raise awareness for equal voting rights, suffragettes planted a battery-powered bomb underneath the Bishop’s throne. However, the bomb was defective and failed to go off. It wasn’t until 1918 that women were allowed to vote and it was 1928 when full voting equality was introduced. St Paul’s Cathedral plays host to rotating roster of art installations by artists including Yoko Ono and Anthony Gormley.

One Hyde Park In addition to having the world’s most expensive apartment, there are 3 occasions when properties in the building have sold for £130 million or more. The building and its residents remain largely enigmatic. Its security, though, is as on-point as you would expect with the corridors patrolled by bowler hat-clad men trained up by the SAS. The development is the brainchild of property developers, The Candy Brothers. Having started out with a £6,000 loan from their parents, they have gone on to amass a multi-billion pound property portfolio.