London - exciting and boring

I've lived in London now for over 6 years now and coming from a country where just about every house is unique and individual (sometimes to a scary degree) London can seem monotonous and boring.

I've walked through suburbs where uniqueness is one street's houses having a different feature window than the houses in the next street. Or one round window instead of a triangular one. Bungalows (single story houses) are unique and sold to little old ladies because there's no stairs and they're rare. Detached houses (not row houses or semi-detached "joined at the hip" houses) are rare and generally owned by millionaires. In fact the greatest sense of identity for most houses here is the (usually shoddy and mismatched) housing modifications - like patios and new window frames.

The song "little boxes by the roadside" applies to London housing and coming into London recently by road it was so undeniably depressing that I wonder why I'm here - when I could be in New Zealand moaning about something completely different ;)

Then, as you think everything is depressing, you get a different point of view (isn't there always?).

I walk a short distance to work in Central London. When I say short, I mean SHORT (or possibly even SHRT). In that extremely short walk to work I pass a modern cafe of an undeniably modern nature (wouldn't want to have to clean all the glass windows), apartment buildings best described as mansions (we won't comment on the insides - British plumbing and cabling is scary), shops with apartments above them that would architecturally be described as palatial (or palace like) and an old church that would be a cathedral in any other country. If I walked a bit further I would actually see a palace too!

Britain can do good architecture (and engineering and manufacturing and design and...) but they just don't these days unless it's for some new bridge or multi-storey office block. When it comes to residential suburban living, it's just bland variations of boring designs that have been here for a century.

It's sad, but you have to wonder if Britain's creative stems from a backlash of the soul against this monotony.

...meanwhile there's nothing wrong with an American beach house being put beside a French chateau style building in a NZ street - is there? Oh....