City Hall (former GLA building)
Below is the City Hall photography portfolio. You can read more about the building below, or head straight to the thumbnails to view the images.
The leaning glass building on the south bank just west of Tower Bridge was London’s seat of government for almost twenty years. Norman Foster designed it, and it opened in July 2002 as the home of the Greater London Authority, the Mayor of London and the London Assembly.
The shape is what people remember. The building is a leaning glass sphere, tilted back towards the south so that each floor shades the one below it and the whole thing throws less of itself at the sun. Inside, a helical walkway climbs the full height of the building around the assembly chamber, and the top floor, known as London’s Living Room, was opened to the public on set weekends for the view across the river to the Tower of London. Londoners gave it the usual run of nicknames, the glass onion, the woodlouse and Darth Vader’s helmet among them, none of which stuck.
The Greater London Authority moved out at the end of 2021 for The Crystal in the Royal Docks. Everyone still calls it City Hall.
It is a useful shape on the river. It is low, so it never competes with the towers behind it, but the curve catches whatever light there is and reads clearly even at a great distance. It sits in the same frame as Tower Bridge and HMS Belfast in most of the views here, and it appears in the wide sweeps from the top of The Shard, where its tilt is most obvious.
Click any of the thumbnails below to explore the City Hall images and the London panoramas it appears in.
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Roseate London
The view in this image encompasses so much of the London skyline and many of its iconic buildings. To the left, you have the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. The London Eye with Buckingham Palace nestled behind it within St James’ Park. Move along the Thames to cross the city into the centre of…
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The City Awaits
City of London Photography The City of London skyline is constantly evolving. And never more so than in late 2018, when I shot The City Awaits. At that time, the Square Mile was in the midst of an extraordinary construction boom. Tower cranes marked the horizon, new skyscrapers were rising almost daily, and the landscape…
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Shard 360 Gigapixel
London from the Top of The Shard A Shard 360 Gigapixel 360 panorama captured high above the city. Shot from the very top of The Shard, more than 300 metres above the River Thames, this Shard 360 gigapixel panorama offers a rare opportunity to explore London’s skyline in exceptional detail. to explore London’s skyline in…
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Lambent London
City of London Photos ‘Lambent London’ was photographed from the summit of 30 St Mary Axe, better known as The Gherkin. From this height, City of London photos can reveal the intricate mix of historic and contemporary architecture that defines the Square Mile. The image forms part of my series of high-resolution panoramas documenting the…
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Constant Thames
Tower Bridge Panorama This high resolution Tower Bridge panorama follows the River Thames as it flows through the centre of London. Past HMS Belfast, More London, including City Hall, towards Tower Bridge, resplendent in blue and white. Across the river, in the City of London, many of its iconic skyscrapers are bursting into light as…
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Into The City
Here you can really look into the City – the panorama is incredibly high resolution so whilst you can stay panned back to take in the views over the Barbican to the Heron Tower, Tower 42, The Gherkin at St Mary Axe, the new Rothschilds Bank HQ at St Swithin’s Lane and the Shard, go…
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Gigapixel 360 Panorama from the Shard
This is a 360 gigapixel panorama which I shot from the crane at the top of the Shard, London Bridge while it was still under construction. At the time of its opening, The Shard was the tallest building in the European Union. As at 2025, it’s the second tallest (outside Russia), beaten only by the…
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Shard London Bridge Summit
This 360 image was captured at the top of the Shard London Bridge, 310m above London, on the night of the student protests in November 2010. You can see the police helicopters hovering over London above the demonstration. Technically this was a very difficult shoot, I was on the crane at the top of the…
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The Shard London Bridge – Blue Hour
The Shard is one of London’s most exciting buildings. It was completed in 2012, then becoming the tallest building in the European Union. I shot views from the Shard for the developer, and the sheer height of the building has made it one of the most exciting series of cityscapes I have worked on –…