What should one do in London?

[Louis VI the Fat]

Harrods (you know women...)

May I recommend Liberty department store? Possible more fashionable, certainly more architecturally interesting.

http://londonarchitecture.co.uk/Building.php?ID=265

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White House (1800)

Buckingham Palace:
The interior - mainly late 19th century
The exterior 1913

Capital Building (1811 and 1863)

Houses of Parliament 1836-1868

Brooklyn Bridge (1883)

Tower Bridge 1894


See what I mean?


In the nineteenth century, European states created themselves a past. At the same time, America created itself a future.
If Philadelphia, New York and San Fransisco had wanted too, they could've looked like Munich, Berlin and Budapest respectively. Each of these European cities were still small villages at the time these US cities were founded. The demographic development of these cities on both sides of the Atlantic coincided closely, from small settlement in 1750 to major city by 1900.

The difference in looks between these contemporaneous American and European cities is explained by political and planological will, not by their age. By the dominance of either public or private development. The former in Europe, the latter in North America.

Likewise, Washington could've looked like Paris.
The Enlightenment's ideals of city planning were first put into in practice in Bordeaux's late 18th century renovation. Shortly after, Pierre Charles L’Enfant's developed these ideals into large scale practise in his plan for Washington. Washington was mostly modelled after this. And fully half a century later, Haussman's Paris was modelled after this (planned) Washington. Meanwhile, Washington's public development very soon after its founding was squandered to private development.

The different development has been a matter of political and planological will, not of historical age.

Imagine, if you will, what New Orleans could've looked like if the French-Spanish-Carribean style could've been developed to its full potential. Development stopped after New Orleans was sold to the US in 1803, after which little of interest was build anymore. The city's development now continued in the typical American manner: all energy devoted to private luxury, in absence of public elegance and beauty.
NO's could've rivalled the prettiest of Mediterranean Europe's historical cities otherwise. Lisbon was rebuild completely after 1755 - the same period that NO was build. New Orleans would be its rival today, equalling Lisbon in age and grace - if only New Orleans would have wanted to.

Québec City too, if only it wanted too, could've looked like an old European city, complete with city walls, if only it would've had the will not to destroy the old, and had given preference to public development over private development. Wait...it did and so it does look like a historic city:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: