125 London Wall

The district was once the northeast corner of the Roman settlement Londinium. Though one of the oldest settled parts of the city, the area was devastated during The Blitz. It was redeveloped in the postwar decades according to modernist planning principles centred on the automobile. London Wall became an "unpleasant 1960s dual carriageway", a "mini-motorway which acted as divisively upon its surroundings as the old wall had". The sites surrounding the roadway were developed under high-rise schemes including the Barbican Estate to the north. The site beside the road upon which Alban Gate was built was originally home to Lee House, a modernist office complex. In 1986, spurred by Margaret…

Construction of the complex began in 1990, and was completed in 1992 with 18 floors and a maximum height of 82 m. Architects Terry Farrell and Partners sought to bridge the urban barrier of London Wall by utilising the air rights over the roadway. The complex is composed of two twin towers, set at a 90-degree angle to each other, with one straddling London Wall itself and offering pedestrian passage via an arcade housing shops and restaurants suspended over the road. The other tower sits on a heavily modelled podium meant to repair the urban fabric, countering the "agoraphobia" and poor pedestrian circulation of the earlier 1960s modernist schemes. The tower plinth and adjacent low…