Views from Heron Tower

Today I went up to town with my sister and her bf as I wanted to go to the plaza under the Cheesegrater. Unfortunately we got up there and the plaza was shut off (damn) so we wandered around aimlessly (FYI there's a lego model of the Gherkin outside the Gherkin...) until we decided to go up Heron Tower to Duck and Waffle for a drink. Unfortunately they were too busy to serve us which has turned out to be a good thing now I know the wine list starts at £40 a bottle!

Anyhoo, Heron Tower is 46 floors' worth of premium office space near Liverpool Street Station which opened in 2011. The fishtank in reception is the largest privately-owned aquarium in the UK and has an entirely sustainable ecosystem (!). Sadly we didn't go in to the main building so I don't have any pictures but it is pretty impressive even just walking past.

I took these photos in the lift on the way up so please excuse the quality as they were taken through two layers of glass.

Open House London 2014 Day 1 Part 2

After Bloomsbury I went off to Liverpool Street to visit Broadgate City of London: Behind the Scenes, which is a model showing the huge amount of work being done at Broadgate (Broadgate Circle to reopen in 2015!). I like models showing building works and in fact visited a different one at a previous Open House. I also visited New London Architecture and blogged about it here ages ago (http://metropolithan.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/new-london-architecture.html).

A very nice lady explained the model to me, and then I forgot to take any photos of it. However I think that the visitor centre is open to the public so it's worth popping in if you're near Liverpool Street. The lady (I didn't get her name) also gave me some leaflets about what's going on at Broadgate, which is how I found out that the Finsbury Avenue floor lights up at night, so obviously I need to get down there post haste (http://www.broadgate.co.uk/art/LitFloor). 

As I failed to get any pictures of the model, here is a link to the architecture part of the website: http://www.broadgate.co.uk/Architecture.

I then went off to 10 Exchange Sqaure for a rooftop tour (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) which was miraculously being offered without pre-booking. Sadly it was quite cloudy by this point BUT SERIOUSLY, ROOFTOP TOUR. So yes, there was a tall building, you could go up it, I went up it, HURRAH. 

Outside and inside the building:

Roof views:

I thought I had gone to six places but looking at my photos and notes it seems to be five. I'm now trying to work out whether I've accidentally counted the Embassy of Belgium (I did go there but their spaces were filled) or whether I went somewhere and forgot about it. I did go past quite a few of the sites in the city but didn't actually visit them.