Coming from the same developer as the Shard, London\u2019s latest trophy building may be 54 storeys shorter than envisaged but should rise to building of the year<\/p>\n
\n If Irvine Sellar, the larger-than-life developer who gave London the 95-storey hypodermic pinnacle of the Shard, had had his way, the UK\u2019s tallest building would have been joined by a sibling: a 72-storey residential tower soaring above Paddington Station, the pair of leviathans winking conspiratorially at each other across the capital. In the end the Paddington Pole, as it became known, attracted the feather-spitting ire of heritage bodies and community groups, and after 1,800 objections, was refused planning permission by Westminster Council.<\/p>\n
Undaunted, Sellar and his architect Renzo Piano \u2013 the Italian imperator of hi-tech and co-designer, with Richard Rogers, of Paris\u2019s Pompidou Centre \u2013 went back to the drawing board and simply lopped off 54 storeys. And so, in a reverse ferret that was a gift to headline writers (\u201cPole-axed\u201d trumpeted Building magazine), the Pole became the Cube: an 18-storey office block, homogenous, crystalline and curiously self-effacing, despite its cubic chonk, its glacial glass walls reflecting the grey London sky.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/57dbf1e20a94445d25cb625ff110301eb50cee0f\/0_730_3126_2501\/master\/3126.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=45db97265e9aa356b0c853015e572838\" "\\"Renzo")
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