A protected view or protected vista is the legal requirement within urban planning to preserve the view of a specific place or historic building from another location. The effect of a protected view is to limit the height of new buildings within or adjacent to the sightline between the two places so as to preserve the ability to see the landmark as a focus of the view. The protection may also cover the area behind the place or building concerned.
For example, in London views of St Paul's Cathedral are protected from various prominent locations around the city. In Edinburgh, a 2005 skyline study compiled a list of almost 170 key views which will now be protected in the planning process.
Protected views are not unique to the UK, also existing in places such as San Francisco which has some of the strictest limits in the world; Portland, Oregon where the size of downtown blocks is kept low to maintain the views of Mount Hood from the West Hills; and the city of Vancouver which has protected "view cones".
Read more about Protected View: Protected Vistas in London
Famous quotes containing the words protected and/or view:
“The rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for, not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given control of the property interests of the country.”
—George Baer (1842–1914)
“Only he who can view his own past as an abortion sprung from compulsion and need can use it to full advantage in the present. For what one has lived is at best comparable to a beautiful statue which has had all its limbs knocked off in transit, and now yields nothing but the precious block out of which the image of one’s future must be hewn.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)