Using AI, Daniel Coughlin has brought to life a Continental-style London that could have been. Image: Daniel Coughlin/AI
An AI video brings Wren's unbuilt London to life.
London pre-Great Fire was a congeries of rambling, filth-strewn lanes and alleyways, punctuated with only a few pockets of real grandeur, such as Inigo's Jones' Covent Garden.
But after the conflagration of 1666, architects leapt into action, excited by the clean slate that fate had gifted them. Chief among them was Christopher Wren, who dreamed of Continental-style boulevards and open squares — a London of "pomp and regularity". Charles II himself was sweet on Wren's bombastic blueprints.
Wren wanted to build a be-fountained piazza to the west of St Bride's church, with an uninterrupted avenue powering towards St Paul's. Image: Daniel Coughlin/AI
