09-03-2025
The London Eye changed the capital forever – and is a far cry from today's Broken Britain
If there's anyone who can allow themselves a wistful gaze up at the London Eye this weekend as it celebrates its 25th anniversary, it's the iconic wheel's co-architect Julia Barfield. 'I've been going back and looking at it for the first time in ages,' she says. 'It's incredibly moving to see so many enjoying the structure – offering people the chance to see London from a new perspective, and to raise spirits.'
The London Eye was initially envisaged by Barfield and her late husband David Marks, of Marks Barfield Architects, as a temporary landmark to celebrate the millennium (in fact, it was originally called The Millennium Wheel). So the passing of a quarter of a century feels particularly resonant. A reminder, too, of a happier, more confident and prosperous Britain. It's barely believable that this temporary wheel has so quickly become as much of a fixture of the capital's 'brand' as Big Ben, St Paul's Cathedral, London Bridge or Buckingham Palace.
It's also a far cry from today's Broken Britain, where projects spend years in the weeds, over budget and incomplete.
Imagine those spectacular New Year's Eve celebrations without fireworks spraying out from a brightly lit London Eye. It's been a cipher for London's vibrancy in film franchises such as Harry Potter, and it now welcomes approximately three million visitors a year.
Delivering an Eiffel Tower for London
Another architect, Sir Richard Rogers, best described its impact when he said: 'The Eye has done for London what the Eiffel Tower did for Paris, which is to give it a symbol and to let people climb above the city and look back down on it. Not just specialists or rich people, but everybody. That's the beauty of it: it is public and accessible, and it is in a great position at the heart of London.'
It's fair to say, then, that the London Eye has become genuinely iconic in an incredibly short space of time. Though there were a few misgivings in the planning stage, you'd now do well to find anyone who thinks the wheel is a blot on the landscape.
And even though it's been through a number of sponsorship name changes (does anyone actually call it the London Eye?) and is now owned by a privately-owned global entertainment consortium charging £30 for a 30 minute ride – it still feels like it represents the capital rather than being a tourist honeypot. Whisper it, but back when The Millennium Wheel opened 25 years ago, it was just £7.45 for the same ride.
Back then, architect Sir Jeremy Dixon said the wheel was 'huge in scale but light in feeling' and it's instructive how many people step back onto the South Bank after their ride in one of the constantly moving 32 pods and comment on the rare stillness they've just experienced in the midst of this bustling capital as new vistas and views reveal themselves.
'The world has embraced the Eye'
As Robin Goodchild, the senior general manager of the London Eye, says: 'Londoners and the world have embraced the London Eye as more than its parts, establishing it to become a symbol of London, a journey across the London skyline.'
Perhaps that sense of an epic journey is why the 443ft Millennium Wheel was swiftly replicated all over the world. Since 2000, there's been a literal race to the top, with cities planning ever-higher, copycat observation wheels.
In 2006, The Star of Nanchang in China (525 ft) held top spot. Within two years, it had been swiftly surpassed by the Singapore Flyer (541ft) and, by 2014, The High Roller in Las Vegas (550ft). It won't surprise anyone that the current record holder is nearly twice the height of the London Eye and in the United Arab Emirates; the Ain Dubai topped out at 820ft when it opened in 2021.
In the UK, too, other cities have dabbled in observation wheels, albeit with much less success. The Wheel Of Manchester popped up in 2004 but didn't last. It was telling that late Manchester icon Tony Wilson said: 'It's a poor imitation of something London's done a lot better.'
A testament to 'entrepreneurial spirit'
The notion of London 'doing stuff better' does feel instructive. Despite the Millennium Wheel being far more complicated than a traditional ferris wheel, it took just over a year from the final designs being approved in 1998 for the parts to be machined, shipped down the Thames, constructed in pieces on site and lifted into place.
Yes, there were issues in its original gestation – the original idea was floated in a 1993 competition for a millennium landmark that, somewhat amusingly, had no winners. Marks Barfield Architects, undeterred, set up their own Millennium Wheel Company to try and build it themselves on the South Bank, where the Festival of Britain had been in 1951. Of course, they didn't own the land and didn't have planning consent. Or indeed the money to build it.
But after their planning application was revealed by supportive media, British Airways got on board as financial backers, and consent was given in 1996. A lesson, then, in what can be achieved in this country with foresight, imagination and enthusiasm.
'We had an entrepreneurial spirit,' says Julia. 'And it just shows, if you have a dream you've got to just go ahead and do it – don't wait to be asked. I only wish David were here to be part of it now.'
