Race to the sky: Is London's tall tower addiction ruining its skyline?

"I don't know what London's coming to," said the English actor, singer and playwright Noel Coward in 1931 as the city's first skyscrapers began to rise.

"The higher the buildings, the lower the morals."
How times have changed.
If inter-war Britain had a distrust of soaring towers like the art deco Senate House that shot up in Coward's day, London's modern city planners are in the midst of a passionate love affair.
Already home to a myriad of iconic skyscrapers -- from the Shard to the affectionately nicknamed Gherkin -- more than 430 new tall buildings (those 20 stories and over) are currently in various stages of planning for London, according to research by independent forum New London Architecture and property consultants GL Hearn.