Exhibition aims to Stop the Shadow

London campaign group Save Shoreditch opened an exhibition against proposed high-rise developments in London’s East End last week.

Stop the Shadow spotlights six proposed office developments on the border between the City and Shoreditch. The tallest is Bishop’s Place at 51 storeys.

Save Shoreditch claims that creative businesses are being evicted to make way for the new blocks.

‘Design consultancies, architects and fashion businesses are losing out,’ says a spokeswoman for the campaign, adding, ‘A block of studios on Vyner Street has been sold and evicted for demolition, as has a listed building in Plough Yard’.

Several representatives from the Greater London Authority attended the exhibition opening last Wednesday, but the GLA declined to give Design Week a response about the initiative.

‘They said that they were interested in what we were saying, but would not commit to anything,’ reports Save Shoreditch’s spokeswoman.

Save Shoreditch admits that local design consultancies could benefit from work generated by the new development.

‘But this is only while they are being built, after which more banks will move in and the cultural mix will be eroded,’ says the spokeswoman.

A planning hearing for the first of the six developments, Bishop’s Place, is due to be heard on 24 July. Stop the Shadow runs at Kemistry Gallery, Charlotte Road, London EC2, until 3 August.