King’s College London has recently become an oasis of beauty and calm right in Central London. The proximity to Somerset House, Embankment Gardens, Covent Garden and the quiet-yet-oh-so-cool Temple District makes it one of the best-placed campsues in the world.
I’m grateful to be a Visiting Professor here, part of the faculty with Jie Zhang, Lukas Twist, Michael Koelling and others!
@dsyme on software 
For many years the church of St Mary le Strand (pictured) served as a monument to the decline of the Britain in the 20th century – not by itself, but by the environment that cut it off from the past and promised it a future of folly. The church was cut off the world by the clogged major road and traffic of the strand (including goods lorries before orbital roads offered routes around, rather than through London), and surrounded by bomb sites before renovation with College buildings.
The one green element (even the trees were grey and choking with soot) was Australia House that went to great lengths to highlight a sunny down-under in contrast with an environment of post-empire decline. The clear message to the countless school trips was a future elsewhere.
The function of those two (miserable) paragraphs is to provide contrast with the beautiful oasis that these photographs now demonstrate. With all remaining traffic diverted, you can be forgiven for thinking it was always a delightful piazza and not the product of decades of diligent improvement and regeneration.
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Gosh, how vivid! And yes, London is going through a renaissance, and for this antipodean is now home!
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