Despite living abroad for most of his adult life, James Joyce was obsessed with his home city of Dublin; he was said to carry a street map in his pocket at all times. As a Londoner in exile, I understand that sense of intense longing. For many years I had a well-thumbed London A-Z on my Sydney bookshelf which I'd flick through, searching out familiar streets, parks and even tube stations.
Over the past 30 years I have flirted with other cities, perhaps fallen in love with some – Vienna, Rome, Santiago, Paris and Portland, Oregon spring to mind – but nowhere can truly replace London in my affections. Where else is so tradition-bound and yet forward looking, brash yet romantic, materialistic and still wickedly irreverent? London seeps into your pores even when it is driving you slowly mad. "You know what I miss most about London," a fellow expat once told me. "Taking the boat down to Greenwich in the dead of winter. I love that peculiar grey light."
![Renzo Piano’s Shard (at left) and Tower Bridge at sunset.](/web/20170223101222im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/d/i/u/n/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gudilm.png/1487283028410.jpg)
While the skyline, especially along the banks of the River Thames, is going through a massive upheaval, the city remains much as I remember from my childhood in the 1960s and '70s, and later working for a radio station when I returned from Australia in the '80s. Even today, the whiff of hot, stale air in the Underground brings that yesterday-London hurtling back. It's comforting to get into a black cab and be greeted with a tirade about Brexit, the cost of living and, yes, Uber. "I had that Eddie Jones in the back of the cab last week," said one driver. "He's from your neck of the woods, isn't he? Must be lovely, all that sunshine."
My earliest memory of London is playing in the maze at Hampton Court Palace. We thought it perfectly natural to have a 500-year-old royal estate that once belonged to Henry VIII at the bottom of our road. That stretch of the river, from East Molesey to Kingston upon Thames, still offers pleasant walks, magnificent parks and historic waterfront pubs.
Later, when I was 11 or 12, we were allowed to catch the train into town by ourselves and visit the British Museum, the Natural History Museum and the Imperial War Museum. The Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand proved to be another pleasurable experience – uniformed attendants would often tip you off about where the juiciest trials were taking place. I loved the pomp, wigs and high-flown rhetoric. London, of course, is not and has never been one city, but a series of distinct enclaves. While gentrification is softening some of those geographic, class and racial divisions, London remains a patchwork of identities, each with its own special traditions, street markets and loyalties.
For me, it is the sense of English history stretching back more than a thousand years that makes London so compelling. One moment you can be standing on the observation deck of The Shard, Renzo Piano's 95-storey glass spire, and the next climbing the time-worn stairs at 17 Gough Square, the modest townhouse where Dr Johnson compiled his 1755 English dictionary. For anyone who loves words, the Garret, where he laboured on the task for eight years, is sacred ground. "The ancient city and the modern city literally lie beside each other," writes Peter Ackroyd in his biography of London. "One cannot be imagined without the other."
In this city of 8.7 million, the future and the past are constantly overlapping. One morning I join a guided tour of the replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, which transports the visitor back 450 years to Elizabethan England, complete with its bearbaiting, atrocious personal hygiene, xenophobia, superstitions and filthy jokes; perhaps the world has changed less than we imagine. Afterwards, I take a gentle stroll along the south bank of the Thames to the nearby Tate Modern – and back into contemporary London. This is modern art presented on an epic scale. Opened in 2000, the gallery occupies a converted 1940s power station, with its centrepiece the massive Turbine Hall. The collection includes iconic works by Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Mark Rothko and other masters.
Despite its grandeur and echoes of imperial splendour – who cannot walk down The Mall towards Buckingham Palace without feeling a shiver of admiration? – London remains a splendidly intimate city, with narrow back alleys and hidden courtyards, colourful street markets, clubby corner pubs, canals and parish churches. The West End, London's entertainment precinct, is surprisingly compact: you'll often spot local and adopted celebrities wandering its narrow, winding streets.
![V8-powered speedboats are one way of taking in tourist attractions such as the London Eye.](/web/20170223101222im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/d/i/u/s/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gudilm.png/1487283028410.jpg)
Famous for its national monuments and time-honoured traditions such as the opening of parliament, London is also the master of reinvention. A massive program of urban renewal is transforming whole swathes of the metropolis. Landmarks such as Battersea Power Station and the wasteland around King's Cross are being dragged into the 21st century.
Meanwhile, the construction of a network of bicycle "superhighways", including a 29-kilometre east-west route from Tower Hill to Acton, is nearing completion.
![Some 60 million people have visited the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, a converted power station.](/web/20170223101222im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/d/i/u/x/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gudilm.png/1487283028410.jpg)
But nowhere is the transformation of London more dramatically illustrated than on the River Thames, which now teems with ferries, kayaks and high-speed adventure craft such as the fearsome Thames RIB Experience. These bright yellow speedboats, powered by V8 engines, will whisk you to Canary Wharf, the Tower of London, HMS Belfast, Greenwich and the Thames Flood Barrier.
For something more sedate, hop aboard one of the sleek new Thames Clippers run by a company which operates a number of services, including a popular Putney to Blackfriars route and a useful service between central London and the 02 Arena.
Despite the jitters surrounding Brexit, the city remains Europe's financial capital, a centre of scientific research and a publishing and advertising hub, with a thriving city culture.
But even the most optimistic local would not have predicted that chips-with-everything London would one day become a major food destination: in the 2017 Michelin guide, London has 64 starred restaurants, finishing ahead of Rome, Barcelona and San Francisco. Top chefs like Marcus Wareing, Giorgio Locatelli, Marco Pierre White and Mark Hix are seen as national treasures – and duly honoured. Perhaps Stephen Graham was right when he wrote, back in 1925, "London is every city that ever was and ever will be."
Mark Chipperfield visited London at his own expense.