Skylines and the 'whole' City: Protected and unprotected views from the South Bank towards the City of London

In the paper the author compares two different views from the South Bank towards the City of London: one from a viewpoint close to Gabriel’s Wharf, the other approximately one hundred and twenty metres further west. While the former is protected by the current London Plan and the London View Management Framework (LVMF), the latter view is absent from either of these planning documents. These distinctive viewing places and their respective views are compared before theoretical and historical aspects of skylines and their relationship to wholeness are introduced. The author refers to the notion of the picturesque as an Enlightenment approach towards an all-embracing wholeness and compares it with modern strategies relating to skylines in the context of globalisation. Finally, the two selected views and the concepts of wholeness they encapsulate are analysed, according to the content of the view in relation to the fixed position of the observer and the mobile observer