22 Bishopsgate was recently granted permission on the site of the ill-fated Pinnacle, where a seven-storey concrete stump has stood since construction stalled in 2008 вЂ“ a mocking relic of the last banking bubble. Some of the biggest pieces are still missing from the chessboard, as the planning office struggles to keep up with what developers are throwing at it. Dubbed Gotham City, for the sense of dystopian gloom it will cast over all who see it, it has the unfortunate quality of being a groundscraper and a skyscraper at the same time вЂ“ and resembling a corpulent grey heap. The gargantuan staggered slabs of MakeвЂ™s 40 Leadenhall Street, for Henderson Global Investors, will form a building more than twice the ScalpelвЂ™s bulk.

Which might not be a bad thing, given whatвЂ™s coming next door. вЂњThe Skyline RefinedвЂќ trumpets its construction hoarding, showing the glass blade reaching to the skies, as if poised to slice up its neighbours. Meanwhile, cranes are conjuring the 38-storey Scalpel вЂ“ a stunted cousin of the Shard by US architects Kohn Pederson Fox. Designed seven years ago by Foggo Associates, the 24-storey spam tin has been revived by one of the worldвЂ™s biggest pension funds, TIAA-CREF. North of the Gherkin, a tower nicknamed the Can of Ham for its odd tubby form is currently being built. But now, with the global property investment industry booming and the CityвЂ™s vacancy rates at their lowest for 15 years, the tabletop fantasy is fast becoming reality. Dreamed up during the banking bubble, most of these novelty chess pieces were stopped dead by the recession. The Perspex peaks cluttering this planning office model glow greenish-grey, like a malevolent crystal formation from the planet Krypton. In an anonymous basement a few streets from the 1 Undershaft site stands a chessboard showing the City of LondonвЂ™s future skyline. But itвЂ™s far from the final piece вЂ“ in fact, itвЂ™s only the beginning of another building boom.

It will crown the planned вЂњclusterвЂќ of towers, standing right between the Cheesegrater and the Gherkin. вЂThe last piece in the jigsawвЂќ is how architect Eric Parry described his design for 1 Undershaft, the tallest building in the City of London, when it was unveiled this week.

Gotham city skyline