And au contraire, it's precisely what makes the district so utterly unique -everywhere you look is contrast, and a gazillion hidden corners. I'm not a fan of the area (used to work there) but I have to say it is an absolute architectural wonderland, despite the corporatism and greed, despite that it looks messy by air, it's a dream at street level, which everything is designed to be experienced from. You literally get 2,000 year old Roman buildings segueing into skyscrapers, and everything in between - 90 churches almost 400 years old, and 50 even older, Roman walls and temples, protected alleyways, endless street art, secret parks, historic ruins and gorgeous pubs. Barely anyone is allowed to live there - simultaneously the oldest and newest district, the busiest and quietest (560,000 per sq mile by day, falling to 3,000 by night).
It is actually run by a notoriously strict planning committee under the infamous Peter Rees, who demands street interaction and a lot of details. Everything gets redesigned to make the multinationals trade off to the public realm - public gardens, ground floor shops, commissioned art, even markets or museums.
Almost every building has something for the public. My lunchstop was sometimes The Leadenhall (aka the Cheesegrater) which has markets and streetvans inside their very open foyer.
Bloomberg, where my other half worked has a museum on the Roman Temple of Mithras in its basement, plus a public walkway bisecting the building to shortcut it to the station
My former offices, 1 Fen Court had public roof gardens, and a short cut street for much of its ground floor, with ceiling video art
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