Access to places with the most magnificent views is often forbidden. London, marvelous yet cursed city, I will always be grateful for the things I have learnt here. From rooftops where the cityscape unfolds, one sees that ugliness cannot be hidden. Each structure aspires to present a pristine glass exterior, yet these surfaces require maintenance platforms and unsightly cranes where reluctant workers clean the façade of progress. An industrial fan inevitably protrudes outside. Security-fenced passageways lead to necessary fire escape routes. Practicality rarely aligns with aesthetic appeal. Buildings inevitably harbor ugliness – clusters of iron, plastic coverings concealing machinery. These elements I’ve always found most captivating. The unplanned, grotesque, and hideous interest me far more than the carefully curated aspects buildings strive to showcase.

I’ve worked in many tall structures, providing services to offices across numerous skyscrapers. From these elevated vantages, you witness what remains invisible to those on the ground below. Construction sites, incomplete concepts behind scaffolding, imperfection in its raw form.

Traversing the sterile downtown streets has bred in me a loathing for areas dominated by towering architecture. Their downcast expressions reflect melancholy while vehicles pass by. This environment radiates something profoundly artificial. On the weekends, tall glass monsters stay empty, and so do the streets beneath them.

Cycling through this abandoned urban landscape, I feel wind gusting with tempest-like force in a haunting manner. It channels through urban ravines between financial headquarters and corporate monuments, howling around corners and generating fierce currents that nearly topple me from my bike. Here emerges the authentic voice of the city, revealed only during human absence, a wailing, solitary resonance speaking of displacement and manufactured geometry imposed upon natural terrain. The structures transform into colossal wind instruments playing jarring harmonies no architect envisioned, yet anyone pedaling through their morning shadows cannot help but perceive and experience viscerally.

There is research on how skyscrapers in urban areas can intensify wind speeds at street level due to aerodynamic effects. Tall buildings can accelerate wind flow, creating discomfort and safety concerns. Google it, there are couple of papers out there.

Only after regular cycling excursions through the city of London did I understand how high-rises shape everyday life. The wind feels more hostile on the weekends, when the offices stare empty from their grey eyes. Crossing London Bridge towards Monument station on Sundays transports you to an almost fictional realm. The sidewalks stand vacant. Neither vehicles nor pedestrians appear. Sainsbury’s doors remain open, awaiting customers who never arrive, while mischievous winds swirl about. Climbing Liverpool Street always brings to mind that Lord of the Rings sequence where the fellowship struggles across Caradhras as Saruman conjures an icy tempest carrying malevolent whispers.

On the weekends, where the buildings are taller, the winds drags an evil voice.