Property War

No doubt the new glass extension of the BBC's Broadcasting House at Portland Place is supposed to neatly frame All Souls Church, but walking up Regents Street this afternoon it struck me that it looked like nothing so much as a pseudopod of a huge amoeba poised to engulf the spire and strip it of its stony nutrients.  Imagine, in a city like London or New York where space is at a premium, buildings warring with their neighbours in an attempt to expand their footprint.  The borders between them as black and necrotic as the borders between neighbouring colonies of coral, an interzone of conference rooms and offices frozen in the act of morphing from one function to another.  A struggle upwards in an attempt to shade out each other's solar panels.  Mines and countermines in the foundations.  Raids into enemy volumes by extensible corridors; cadres of ninja IT technicians running illicit cables through ducts to tap into the power systems and mainframes of the opposition.  Sound systems screaming advertorial propaganda.  Late stage capitalism at its most feral.