Leadenhall Building - City of London (London) - Odd-Shaped Buildings on Waymarking.com

Unusually shaped silhouette of 223 m tall Leadenhall Building, rising from the centre of London'city, is one of the key elements of the new post-modern high-rise skyline of the UK capital..

The Leadenhall Building designed by Sir Richard Rogers, a commercial skyscraper opened in July 2014, is also known as "The Cheesegrater" thanks its distinctive assymetrical wedge shape. It is one of a number of new tall buildings recently completed or currently under construction in the City of London financial area.

The new tower features a tapered glass façade on one side which reveals steel bracings, along with a ladder frame to emphasize the vertical appearance of the building. It also appears to anchor the tower to the ground, giving a sense of strength. Unlike other tall buildings, which typically use a concrete core to provide stability, the steel megaframe, engineered by Arup, provides stability to the entire structure and is the world's tallest of its kind. The base features a 30 m high atrium. This will be open to the public and will extend the adjacent plaza. The flat side of the building is also encased in glass, and houses the mechanical services – in particular the elevator shafts. These have been turned into an architectural feature in a vein similar to the neighboring Lloyd's building – they deliberately show off the elevator machinery with bright orange painted counterweights and the actual elevator motors themselves. This unusual design's main drawback is the building's relatively small floorspace (84 424 m²) for a building of its height. However, it is hoped that the slanting wedge-shaped design will have less impact on the protected sightline of St. Paul's Cathedral when viewed from Fleet Street and the west. [adapted and excerpted from wiki]