Absurdity
Rooftop Pool Plan Relocated To Building Visible Only From The Rooftop Pool
By Jeff Garstein, . BSN Network. Satire.
MCR Hotels has submitted revised plans for the BT Tower in London that relocate the development's promised rooftop pool from the top of the BT Tower to the roof of a shorter, adjacent building that is not the BT Tower. The pool will remain, technically, on a roof. MCR considers this sufficient.
The original proposal placed the pool at the top of the 177-metre telecommunications landmark, which is the reason anyone wanted to stay there. The revised proposal places it considerably lower, on a structure that has not been described in any press release as iconic, a telecommunications landmark, or the reason anyone wanted to stay there.
MCR's chief development officer, in a statement issued Tuesday, called the new arrangement "an evolved vision that balances the experiential aspirations of our guests with a renewed commitment to the public realm." He then said the word "connectivity" four times in two sentences, which is something people do when they have moved the pool.
What MCR is giving the public in exchange for the pool is access to the upper floors of the BT Tower itself, the floors where the pool was going to go. This is the part of the story that gets worse each time you look at it. Paying hotel guests will lie in water at a middling elevation, staring up at the revolving floors above them, which will be full of tourists who paid nothing and are pointing at things.
A spokesperson for the hotel group confirmed that guests in the tower will have "premium access to curated amenities across the development," which is the hospitality industry's way of saying the good thing is in a different building. Premium access. Curated. Across. These are the three words that appear in every sentence written by someone who has just moved your thing.
BT Tower was acquired by MCR in 2023 for 275 million pounds. The tower is famous for being tall. The hotel was famous, briefly, for the pool at the top of the tall thing. The development is now famous for the pool at the top of a thing that is near the tall thing, which is a different category of famous and a worse one.
Architectural consultants involved in the project told reporters the lower building offers "a more thermally stable environment" for a pool, which is true in the same way that a bathtub offers a more thermally stable environment than the top of a skyscraper. Nobody has ever paid 275 million pounds to install a bathtub.
Local planning officials praised the revised submission for its commitment to public access, describing the restored upper floors as "a genuine gift to Londoners." Nobody noted that the gift consists of the hotel deciding not to fill those floors with a pool and some sunbeds.
A man outside the tower on Tuesday said he thought the whole thing was "a bit of a laugh, really." He had been trying to book a room at the tower hotel and had not yet found the website. He was not aware the pool had moved. He seemed like he would be fine.
Construction is expected to begin in 2026, with the hotel opening in 2027, at which point guests may enjoy panoramic views of the building where the views are.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2026/09/23/bt-towers-rooftop-pool-plan-brings-swimmers-back-down-to-earth/5298365