Few cities' skylines have changed as much as London's. Settled by Romans on the banks of the Thames in 43 A.D., London has almost 2,000 years of architectural history under its belt, and the next few years are expected to bring about even more dramatic change. More than 200 tall towers and skyscrapers are under construction, approved, or proposed to be built in the near future. The structures are controversial, with many high-profile authors, architects, and politicians coming out against them. But even if all of them don't get built, change is coming.
To help you visualize how London's skyline might evolve over the next decade, The Guardian has put together a series of simple interactive panoramas that shows the view of the city from Waterloo Bridge, Vauxhall, and from Blackfriars Bridge. Click on each view, and like magic, you can see the proposed buildings rush in, building themselves out of the ground from nothing.
The takeaway? In London — and, let's face it, in most of the other metropolises of the world — the sky is getting lower and lower with each new building that goes up. And to think: 30 years from now, in the weird Blade Runner future they inhabit, our kids might look back at the skylines we have now and think of them as quaintly sparse.