Today I was lucky enough to visit Coq D’Argent, a restaurant in the city on the roof garden of 1 Poultry in the City.

 

1 Poultry is perhaps one of the last buildings of the postmodernist architectural movement/style to be completed. It’s certainly striking, with its pink and yellow alternating limestone cladding.

It has an unfortunate reputation as a suicide hotspot, and it has certainly changed from when I came here in about 10 years ago as a young city lawyer. These days there is a security guard on the roof terrace and the barriers have been raised.

I’m going to be contraversial now and say I wish that extra safety measures were removed. To me it’s a bit like requiring barriers between every train and the platform, simply impractical, and it detracts from the beauty and wonder of an amazing location. Some may say I’m callous, but I’m afraid I simply hate the idea of the safety first culture extending to suicide risk.

Leaving all of that aside, the views are simply spectacular and the location is still inspiring. Bizarrely, I saw lots of details I’ve never noticed before – I never knew London buses have white roofs! The food was great too (thanks to Mark K and Ferdisha who took me and a colleague)…

Taken with my Fuji X-Pro1 and 14mm lens (shot of 1 Poultry with 27mm lens).