Climax City

8.Boulevards and Dictators

400km Public Realm

London, Regent Street: The sinuous street through the centre of this plan from Park Crescent (1), down Portland Place (2), around the BBC and All Souls Church (3) onto Regent Street (4) and Oxford Circus where it crosses Oxford Street (5) is a very British masterplan, very different to the boulevards of Paris.

Let us return to the Prince Regent and his architect John Nash, who we last encountered in Chapter 4 designing the outrageously over-the-top Royal Pavilion in Brighton. Nash trained as an architect in the 1770s and his career had been patchy up until the point when he met the prince. He ...