From Gaudy to Gaudi: Croydon (London)

Sticking with Barcelona, the Guardian reports on what can only be described as hugely ambitious plans to turn Croydon - a grey, concrete-covered south London suburb - into something resembling the sun-blessed Mediterranean city.

"Later tonight the much maligned town, once described as a 'complete concrete hell' by David Bowie, will announce a multibillion-pound regeneration plan that will, potentially, turn it into a beacon of sustainability, drawing on ideas from other European cities including Barcelona," the paper says.

"The architect Will Alsop, who once tried to reinvent Barnsley as a walled Tuscan hill town, is to mastermind the transformation, which has as its centrepiece "a vertical version of the Eden Project" rising more than 30 storeys in Park Hill Park.

"Effectively a giant greenhouse in the form of a skyscraper, it would become Croydon's primary visitor attraction with different species planted in "sky gardens" on each floor."





The hanging gardens of Croydon?