Lesser known London viewpoints: the dramatic view from One New Change, St Pauls -

There’s some fabulous new views across London to be seen on top of the dramatic One New Change development by St Pauls.

Designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, the eight-storey shopping and office complex has been created directly to the east of St Paul’s Cathedral in the City of London.

It’s an unusual building all right, featuring a central hexagonal atrium, fed by open “streets” opening up into adjacent roads and squares. Apparently built on ‘eco’ lines, the design uses large-scale geothermal heating technology and solar control glazing.

Opening in October last year, the mixed-use scheme serves up 340,000 sq ft of prestigious office space and 220,000 sq feet of shops, cafes and restaurants and is covered with 6,500 floor-to-ceiling glass panes in varying shades of red, grey and beige.

If the building has failed to impress, then I suggest you take the glass walled lift to the top floor and take in the magnificent views from the roof terrace.

It should take your breath away because it really is rather fantastic – and I particularly like the view of The Shard.

The terrace affords stunning views of Wren’s English baroque masterpiece, St Paul’s, as well as providing a near-unbroken panorama of the City and vast swathes of south London. You can see the London Eye to the right of this photo.

There’s a series of ‘modern medieval’ sculptures along the terrace.

Madison restaurant on the roof terrace.

Dating from the 17th Century and built to a design by Sir Christopher Wren, St Paul’s Cathedral stands 365 feet (111m) high, and was the tallest building in London from 1710 to 1962.

To the left of the picture is ‘Nail’ a public sculpture by Gavin Turk. It just looks like a thumping great nail to me, but the website insists that there’s more:

Resting at a slight 5° angle, the 12-metre high, cast bronze sculpture of a nail sits between the gleam of 21st century glass and the historic facade of St Paul’s Cathedral. ‘Nail’ represents Turk’s interpretation of the dialogue between these two monuments, and the extraordinary changes that have taken place over the centuries in an area rich in history and heritage.

The official website for One New Change comes loaded with a pageful of facts about the building and the areas.

You can’t go wrong with a pageful of facts, so I’ve reproduced them below:

The City – the world’s leading financial and business centre – has the unusual ratio of 40 times more workers than residents
The Square Mile is a location like no other – linked to a staggering one in six jobs in the capital
The City has 12,000 firms, 7,855 of which are in finance or business – there are 264 foreign banks and 618 legal firms
340,000 people work in the City of London, and 112,000 of those are based within a 10 minute walk of One New Change
69% of workers in the City are aged 20-39 – and 18% are 40-49 years old
9, 200 people currently live locally within the City (80,000 living on the fringes)
Of the 12.95 million annual footfall at St Paul’s station, 5.1 million (39%) occurs outside peak commuting times. 32% of off-peak exit and entries are at weekends
One New Change stands at 560,000 sq feet (52,024 sq metres) and is the equivalent of just over 12 football pitches, with 220,000 sq feet of retail space and 330,000 sq feet office space
One New Change will be home to 3,000 office workers
The external cladding is made up of 6,500 glass panels of different sizes and shapes, of which 4,300 are individually hand crafted
Once finished, half a kilometre of perimeter wall will have been built and 330,000 bricks will have been laid (at its peak, 12,000 bricks were delivered every week)