Your London architecture guide for a weekend stroll
Stop googling. Stop instagramming. Let Wallpaper* design editors (and London locals) Rosa Bertoli and Sujata Burman guide you through the streets of the greatest city on earth.

Weekend life in London can be fairly daunting. There’s only 52 in a year after all, so you have to be curated about planning them, specially when there is a plethora of buildings to check off the must-see list. What if there was a cute little guide, light enough to carry around, chunky enough to be trusted? Hoxton Mini Press knew exactly what we were thinking.
The Opinionated Guide to London Architecture is the solution to that weekend problem. You can stop spending your Saturday mornings trawling Google. This book will draw you across the city in its own curated trail of 54 London buildings.
London locals Rosa Bertoli and Sujata Burman, also editors at Wallpaper*, whittled down their list in collaboration with the Hoxton Mini Press team. ‘We quite simply asked ourselves: "What makes this building an example of brilliant London architecture?" We also wanted to showcase a range of mixed-use public spaces – it is great that so many architectural gems are free and open to the public.’
Their tip for a day of architecture hunting? ‘Get out early as possible to enjoy the streets in an emptier state, and make sure to stop at a pub – or two – for a pint, to make it a true Londoner tour.’
The book holds a refreshing mix of old and new, brutal, art deco, pomo and more. You’ll find new appreciation for the greats: the National Theatre, James Stirling’s One Poultry, Sir John Soane’s Museum or the Tate Modern. And you’ll discover sites you never knew were there: Steven Holl’s Maggie’s Bart in Covent Garden, John Outram’s Isle of Dogs Pumping Station or a brutal church nicknamed ‘The Gate of Heaven’ in Mile End. One that just missed the cut? ‘Welbeck Street Car Park. Its amazing brutalist form is now being demolished and turned into a luxury hotel.’ Oh London...
RELATED STORY
The framing of photographer Taran Wilkhu’s shots, which illustrate each entry, always draw your eye to the details – his focus is on the crests, the cornices, the corners. And it's the careful selection of shots that make the book feel all the more curated.
This guide is a starring point, and from there, you’ll learn a lot and make some memories of your own along the way. After all, ‘Buildings are stories. Literally,’ writes Rory Olcayto, director, Open House London in the foreword. He goes on to describe the genesis of the word ’storey’ tracing it back to Roman times. London is a vast library, he concludes. Lucky then, that we’ve got a succinct guide in our back pocket.
The Hoover Building – ‘Art Deco off the A40’
London Aquatics Centre – ‘Zaha Hadid’s futuristic swimming arena’
Walmer Yard – ‘Boutique residential block’
The Trellick Tower – ’The tower to define all Brutalist towers’
Centre Point – ‘An intricate brutalist icon’
Michelin House – ‘A playful art deco palace’
INFORMATION
An Opinionated Guide to London Architecture, published by Hoxton Mini Press, £9.95
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Harriet Thorpe is a writer, journalist and editor covering architecture, design and culture, with particular interest in sustainability, 20th-century architecture and community. After studying History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Journalism at City University in London, she developed her interest in architecture working at Wallpaper* magazine and today contributes to Wallpaper*, The World of Interiors and Icon magazine, amongst other titles. She is author of The Sustainable City (2022, Hoxton Mini Press), a book about sustainable architecture in London, and the Modern Cambridge Map (2023, Blue Crow Media), a map of 20th-century architecture in Cambridge, the city where she grew up.
-
Bay House brings restrained modern forms and low-energy design to the Devon coast
A house with heart, McLean Quinlan’s Bay House is a sizeable seaside property that works with the landscape to mitigate impact and maximise views of the sea
-
Meet Kotchakorn Voraakhom, a Thai landscape architect on a mission
Thai landscape architect Kotchakorn Voraakhom, her studio Landprocess and network Porous City, are on a mission to make Bangkok a model of climate resilience
-
Eversolo’s all-in-one streaming amp takes care of CDs as well as almost every online service
Designed for space-saving sonic flexibility, the Eversolo Play will connect to almost anything, even accommodating your old compact discs
-
Bay House brings restrained modern forms and low-energy design to the Devon coast
A house with heart, McLean Quinlan’s Bay House is a sizeable seaside property that works with the landscape to mitigate impact and maximise views of the sea
-
A whopping 92% of this slick London office fit-out came from reused materials
Could PLP Architecture's new workspace provide a new model for circularity?
-
Meet the landscape studio reviving the eco-brutalist Barbican Conservatory
London-based Harris Bugg Studio is working on refreshing the Barbican Conservatory as part of the brutalist icon's ongoing renewal; we meet the landscape designers to find out more
-
A refreshed Victorian home in London is soft, elegant and primed for hosting
Sobremesa house by architects Studio McW shows off its renovation and extension, designed for entertaining
-
15 years of Assemble, the community-driven British architecture collective
Rich in information and visuals, 'Assemble: Building Collective' is a new book celebrating the Turner Prize-winning architecture collective, its community-driven hits and its challenges
-
Meet Studio Knight Stokoe, the landscape architects guided by ‘resilience, regeneration and empathy’
Boutique and agile, Studio Knight Stokoe crafts elegant landscapes from its base in the southwest of England – including a revived brutalist garden
-
Tour this compact Kent coast jewel of a cabin with Studiomama
Jack Mama and Nina Tolstrup take us on a tour of their latest project – a small but perfectly formed Kent coast cabin in Seasalter, UK
-
Boutique London rental development celebrates European courtyard living
London design and development studio Wendover unveils its newest residential project, 20 Newcourt Street, comprising nine apartments; we toured with co-founder Gabriel Chipperfield