Canary Wharf Towers

I went to Canary Wharf the other week. The first developer in there was a Canadian firm called Olympia and York. In Canada, it's so darn cold and the snow is so darn deep that the shopping centres of many larger towns are actually built underground. Not all of them, but certainly Toronto, where O&Y came from. The O&Y buildings have their shops below ground, and may other developers have followed this lead of doing nothing at street level. 

Another way of saying this is that there is no "street" at street level in Canary Wharf. "Street" should mean shops, cafes, restaurants, cars, taxis, buses, signs, lights, fly-posted adverts, and so on. At ground level. Flats, offices and light industrial ateliers from the first floor up. There are a few coffee and food trucks and some buses, but that's about it. 

The City of London is an industrial estate, but it has a variety of architectural styles and various eateries and drinkeries at street level - while Cheapside and Princes Street / Moorgate have actual recognisable retail outlets. But Canary Wharf is just a collection of high towers with some "architectural" gimmicks that only ever looked decorative in the architect's sketches. Metal-and-glass is metal-and-glass no matter how you angle it - it does not have the texture of stone or brick.