lose oneself in 沉浸于;沉迷于
Until the 1960s Tower Hill, overlooking the tower itself, was surrounded by the buildings, mostly warehouses, of a working Georgian and Victorian city. Most eye-catching of all, Tower Bridge, designed by the City architect, Horace Jones, in 1886, rose downstream in deference to the tower itself. The most famous bascule bridge in the world and still working, it perfectly complements the battlements and vigour of the Conqueror's fortress. Visitors can climb it and look down on river and city beneath, getting a closer and more evocative view than from the big wheel upstream.
eye-watching adj. 引人瞩目的
Tower Bridge 伦敦塔桥(从英国伦敦泰晤士河口算起的第一座桥，也是伦敦的象征，有“伦敦正门”之称。)
That is about it. As Unesco rightly suggests, no city in Europe has shown less concern for the setting of its historic buildings than London. St Katherine's Dock just downstream of the bridge has been partly restored, but its tower facade is wrecked by an overwhelming glass box by Lord Rogers, and by the appalling concrete Tower Hotel. Whoever allowed this to be put up should be shot, and one day I assume it will be taken down.
show less concern to 对……关注较少
take down 拆下;推倒
Across the river lies the benighted site of warehouses cleared in the 1970s and left fallow as planners argue over what to do next. Had the waterfront been restored, as happened downstream in Wapping, this area would have been yielding rent and jobs for a quarter of a century. That is the true cost of so-called redevelopment.
Directly opposite the Tower is the mayor of London's oval building designed by Lord Foster and described by former mayor Ken Livingstone as a "glass testicle". It lurches strangely towards the river with, to its right, the frigid More London development. Meanwhile, on the north bank upstream of the Tower, is a giant atrium block also by Foster, blundering across the contour.
These buildings show not the slightest respect for the Tower or Tower Bridge. They are monuments only to insipid steel and glass.
Question time:
1. Why does the auther suppose that Unesco may strip Westminster's Parliament Square and the Tower of London in the City of their world heritage status?
2. What's the author's attitude to the warehouses and oval buildings?
【参考答案】
1. Because no city in Europe has shown less concern for the setting of its historic buildings than London, the towering Shard looms over both of them from its launch pad on the south side of London Bridge.
2. He resolutely opposes such buildings, in his opinion, They are monuments only to insipid steel and glass.
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