The dominance of starchitect-led high rises in London is the result of the UK’s subjective planning system, according to a new opinion piece in The New York Times. Taking aim at the city’s “weird” skyline, business and economics columnist Peter Coy argues that “developers hire star architects because doing so gives them a better chance of winning approval for taller, more profitable buildings.”

“London has a jarring profusion of odd skyscrapers with funny names or nicknames,” Coy explains. “There are the Shard and the Scalpel, which are pretty elegant. The (mostly) well-liked Gherkin, which looks like a glass pickle. The wedge-shaped Cheese Grater. And the widely loathed Walkie-Talkie, a bulbous cartoon of a building that “looms thuggishly over its low-rise neighbors like a broad-shouldered banker in a cheap pinstriped suit,” to quote The Guardian.”

Unlike a prevailing U.S. system where decisions to issue building permits are rules-based, the UK system is more discretionary, with planning authorities given more freedom to approve or reject applications on their perceived individual merit. Citing data from researchers at the London School of Economics and Oxford University, Coy explains that the involvement of high-profile architects in London schemes is a “signal of design quality, providing a passport to political approval and a bigger building.”

One study by emeritus professor Paul Cheshire found that “buildings designed by an architect after winning a lifetime achievement award increased between 13 to 17 floors (depending on model specification) compared with those the same architect had designed before receiving the award.” By contrast, Coy notes that Chicago, famous for its tall buildings, shows no such correlation.

“There are probably people who find the Walkie-Talkie charming,” Coy concludes after explaining his own critique for the Rafael Vinoly-designed scheme. “The point is, buildings like that don’t just pop out of the ground. There’s an explanation for them. And the explanation is economic.”

The piece comes in the same week that we highlighted a new provocative project by former Archinect competition winner Kyle Branchesi, who envisioned a vehicle-centric London under the title “The Motorist Won.” Last month, meanwhile, South Korean architect Minsuk Cho and Mass Studies were announced as designers for the 2024 Serpentine Pavilion in London, while the developers behind London’s Sphere announced they were abandoning the project, saying the scheme had become “merely a political football between rival parties.”