Perhaps the English showed too much enthusiasm for long haired pop idols, boxy but safe cars and brilliant ice-cool bearded tennis players from Sweden? Or perhaps the capital city's lack of coherent housing strategy, creating mass shortages and rocketing prices, has tempted one of the worlds largest furniture companies to try its hand at housing, and the creation of a new city district?
In 2013 work on... lets call it 'Ikea Land' is scheduled to start on a large site in East London. The furniture company will apparently create 1200 apartments, offices, shops, restaurants and even cycle and foot paths. The proposals look environmentally sustainable and feature no cars in the town, a hydro electric generating plant and a sophisticated way of collecting refuse.
Volume house building in the UK has a mixed reputation amongst architects. Perhaps new ways of thinking from outside the traditional construction industry will shake things up a little?
