London mayor Boris Johnson has indicated that Labour peer RichardRogers is unlikely to continue as the city’s adviser on architectureand urbanism under his administration.Speaking at City Hall onWednesday, Johnson said: “I’ll certainly be maintaining the role of anadviser on architecture or urbanism, but you’ll have to watch thisspace to see exactly who we come up with.”Rogers was appointed by Johnson’s predecessor, Ken Livingstone.TheConservative mayor, who spoke out against tall buildings during hiscampaign, described himself as not “not viscerally hostile” towell-designed tall buildings.“We’ve got two sights that areunder some sort of Unesco preservation order,” he said, “and we are indanger of salami slicing the view, and I want to protect them. We’regoing to make sure we return to the 1991 sight lines. But, I am notviscerally hostile to beautiful tall buildings – but they need to be inthe right place… you can’t be completely conservative on these matters.”Livingstone revoked the 1991 regional planning guidance in July 2007, and replaced it with the London View Management Framework.Atthe press conference, Johnson’s first since being elected on May 1, heconfirmed he would be stepping down as MP for Henley, to concentrate onhis role as mayor.
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