NYC/London

London has a distinct, royal look to it, mainly because a great succession of royal families have built it over the last several centuries to what we see today. the buildings are very ornate and represent the 16th, 17th, and 18th century tastes of style and architecture of the periods in which they were built. The designs on the stone buildings is very ornate and the stone buildings are commonly found throughout the city. The Royal taste was only for the best materials to be used on such buildings as the British Parliament buildings (which is the orange-looking one on the left) and other Royal/government buildings. Not many of the structures look to rise above 10 stories. It also appears that London appears to maintain as much greenspace as possible, especially along the body of water that runs through the 

city.

The next two pictures are of New York City, in which skyscrapers are numerous and hide many of the smaller buildings next to them. Unlike London, New York had a few different ethnic groups in the 19th century and varying degrees of wealth, which both factored into the design and size of the buildings. London also had some more room to work with in terms of area, whereas New York's frame of mind was to keep going up to achieve the desired space they needed. The skyscrapers are also mixed in with older buildings, which is an American thing because new buildings seemed to represent the opportunity to show wealth, but most importantly, progress. Old buildings were seen as a peace of the past, not necessarily planned to continue into the future, but the skyscrapers made them less noticeable and made them less relied upon. Also, I have observed, that the more important/powerful a company is, the taller the building that is built and the more windows it has.

It seems that London maintains is Royal appearance because the people that live there, mostly are English, and the people who make the decisions about the landscape of the city enjoy their English roots. New York was at one time the largest immigrant center int he world and the type of architecture that is shown in NY is because of the different ideas coming from varying parts of the world.