After 1666 Londoners were forced to think about the planning of urban space — and the issue is still raging

buildings which his firm designed, is clear where the current problem lies. “We’ve handed over the power for planning to the big house-builders, and they have no special interest in quantity and not much in quality either — they’re interested in creating demand and profit, and that goes against what we need.”

Do you build up, or outwards? Tall buildings or urban sprawl? The architect Eric Parry characterises one issue as the very British demand for individual space. “London is a world of front doors and gardens. Our issue now is how can a welltried and tested system of continental apartment living come to be understood culturally in an island where everyone has become used to that access from a front door?”

Intelligent, creative planning, such as we are seeing now at King’s Cross, allows for a creative combination of public open spaces alongside high-rise living, but that depends on enlightened development. Moore argues that we must reconsider even long-held principles: “I think we have to use every tool in the box — that includes building upwards sometimes. It includes densifying suburbs, and I don’t think the green belt c an be e xc l u d e d . T h a t w a s i nve n t e d as something for the benefit of Londoners, for them to experience fresh air, and it isn’t — it’s for the benefit of people who live in the green belt. The idea that when there is this pressure on London you can’t ever touch it is a little ridiculous.”

Rogers believes we have not nearly exhausted the supply of brownfield sites in the capital, and that there is far more we could adapt for housing from post-industrial London. He is convinced London should be able to a dapt , c re a t i ng g re e n c onnec t i ng spaces a s we l l a s go o d h i g h - r i s e buildings.

Affordable housing is at the forefront of Mayor Sadiq Khan’s agenda for London, and the place of culture and the arts in those new developments will be one theme of the GLA’s emerging plan for cultural infrastructure led by his deputy mayor Justine Simons.

Three-and-a-half centuries after the Great Fi re f orc e d us to make bi g decisions about the future of London, Parry remains an optimist. “There must be the celebration of a poetic dimension to life, and a stimulus: theatre, music, film, galleries, these are the ways that one can reckon the life of a city, and it’s a dimension to the city that is absolutely essential to its well-being. They bring people together for shared experiences. Cities will indeed survive and thrive and adapt to the complexities they face… I believe the cit y will be the test of civilisation.”