All over London, interior designers have long been coming up with all kinds of novel, attractive and innovative designs, often reflecting the latest ideas but sometimes harking back to some historical styles too.

That means there is a lot of scope to come up with different options for your home, but both opportunities and constraints will inevitably exist depending on circumstances. For example, buildings with large windows and a clear view will afford more natural light and less shadow than a basement flat hemmed in by large buildings.

In considering these issues, we often focus on the inspiration that different architectural styles seen in London can inspire us. There is a lot to go at, from Regency to Victorian, Romanesque to the post-modern steel and glass of 21^st century skyscrapers.

However, a pertinent question may be asked: Can any building be inspirational? This month, Time Out Magazine featured the curious change in how No 1 Poultry has come to be regarded, with the building having just gained a Grade II listing. The magazine found this particularly notable because its readers had once voted it the fifth ugliest in London in a poll.

“It’s a real ugly-duckling-to-swan-type story, one that shows how attitudes change over time -especially when it comes to stuff that is controversial and eye-catching,” the publication commented.

Built in 1998, the post-modern structure near Bank Underground Station has certainly divided opinion, with many wanting it torn down and yet others curiously liking it. The use of pink and yellow sandstone in stripes was always going to divide opinion. Then again, so might an interior design that intersperses those colours.

Some might wonder how such a building might come to be listed while unique properties with lots of character elsewhere are not (a lament heard most loudly in the Midlands after the destruction of the Crooked House pub occurred before an application for listing could go through). Others may argue that eclectic and unusual designs add to London’s cityscape.

London seems to have a number of very notable ‘ugly’ buildings. The Carbuncle Cup, the architecture award from Building Design Magazine that nobody wanted to win, ran from 2006 to 2018 and featured several London winners, with buildings from the capital winning it every year from 2012 to 2017.

Whether it was modern skyscrapers like the Walkie Talkie (2015) or Lincoln Plaza the following year or University College London’s “prison-like” 465 Caledonian Road student halls (2013), London’s dominance in the later years of the award, having had no winner before 2010, may be seen as bad news for the capital’s architectural reputation.

Yet ugly buildings, even modern ones, do get listed. An article by My London in 2020 produced a list of London’s ugliest, which included listed buildings like Trellick Tower in Notting Hill and Battersea Power Station, as well as some of the more recent Carbuncle Cup winners.

What constitutes beautiful or ugly is never universally agreed upon, or else the architects would never have come up with the designs they did. To someone out there, even a Carbuncle Cup winner is beautiful. So if something unusual appeals to you, be assured that there can be some interior design inspiration there too.