Since the early 1990’s heritage-led regeneration has progressively become an important strategy for the revitalisation of urban areas. This revitalisation though, albeit its positive financial outcome, is not without side-effects, especially when carried out by commercial developers in the established socio-economic system. This paper explores how heritage-led regeneration fits in the 21st century plans for the physical, social and economic restructuring of post-industrial historic megacities, like London. Drawing from the King’s Cross case, a contemporary project with high heritage significance described as the biggest European inner city redevelopment, the paper will highlight the gains and losses of the process, in terms of heritage preservation and resilience of historic, spatial and social values. The analysis of the background, decision-making process and product of the King’s Cross scheme will inform the study’s conclusion. Finally, it will be argued that historic considerations play a subordinate role in the formation of heritage-led regeneration strategy. Its impact is intertwined with the priorities of the established political and economic system, which control predicaments between financial growth and social sustainability. This study complements previous findings and contributes additional evidence on the evolving discourse on the nuanced effects of urban regeneration while informing future practice on similar cases.

Anthony Minghella’s 2006 film Breaking and Entering frames two views of London focusing on King’s Cross station, one of the city’s key transportation hubs and, like many such centres, a complex site of marginality. To its main protagonist, the architect/urban designer Will Francis (Jude Law), it is a site to be transformed into a model (in several senses) of what London—and the practice of urban design—have to offer the “new” Europe. The viewpoint of the young Kosovan refugee Miro Simiç (Rafi Gavron) is quite different. He sees King’s Cross from the rooftops, which he clambers as a petty burglar by night to break into local offices. His acts of parkour (defined by its practitioners as “the art of displacement”) are central to the film. Miro, the teenaged character, exists in a space of displacement: displaced from his native Sarajevo, and from the streets of London by his status as refugee and thief. The film contrasts these two viewpoints—one which forms space, and one displaced—by citing real and imagined city-building projects in London, and placing them in relationship to the bodies of Will and Miro.

This paper presents a comprehensive study of large-scale, master-planned urban developments in Asia and Europe. Increasing in numbers all over the world since the 1980's, these urban mega-projects—here referred to as Grands Projets—have become major drivers of urban intensification. Set forth to actuate urban renewal or to augment city expansion, Grands Projets have become spatial manifestations of cities' larger economic and political agendas. In their development process, they have triggered a change in the urban condition beyond the very boundaries of their sites. As such, they offer a productive means of investigating current urban trends in a globally connected form of concentrated urbanisation. This research, based at the ETH-Future Cities Laboratory (FCL) in Singapore, examines eight case studies in Asia and Europe through five analytical frames: a project's conception, design, implementation, operation and implications. This approach addresses various spatial and temporal scales within different theoretical and material practices, allowing a comprehensive discussion of Grands Projets within and across varying socio-political contexts. This paper sheds light on the specific urban conditions of Grands Projets despite their global development trends, transnational owners or financing alliances and internationally regulated planning practices. Often dependent on exceptional regulations outside statutory planning procedures, they are subject to context-specific challenges, project-specific briefs and unique configurations of actors and stakeholders, all of which have created different manifestations of Grands Projets in space. This analytical framework, as presented in this paper, will form the basis of a larger comparative endeavour to be completed at a later stage in our work.