Eagle House
August 2010
“Eagle’s fly high, but weasels don’t get caught in Jet engines”
…As I was once so succinctly told, a quote relayed from her father by a philosphical girlfriend. Not quite sure what it’s supposed to suggest? If you aim high, somebody will shaft you somewhere along the line? If you try and don’t succeed, cheat? Either way, this site was simple as pie. Back to basics, the hardest part was the 29 flights of stairs.
Views were reasonably good, no other building nearby was sufficiently tall to block the view. A crane was also on site, slightly taller than the buildings, but needed climbing from the bottom. London has several tall building projects on the go at any one time, we walked past the Shard of Glass when we met at London Bridge, and it excited us. It’s about half as tall as it will be when it tops out, and when it does, it will be the tallest building in the UK, ever. Exciting times.
The whole rooftop thing has always been enjoyable. Finding scaffolding, open doors, construction sites that aren’t perhaps guarded as well as they should be. There’s a great feeling at the top of them, almost as if you’re safe. Of course, going down and out is usually the riskiest part, but by then you’ve been on top and being escorted out hardly ruins the night. No such event here, we were down and off to The Fleet.
