Lofts for rent in the West End of London

The history of loft living makes an interesting contrast with the current enthusiasm for the concept. Lofts first emerged in New York in the Fifties when impoverished artists began to colonize the abandoned buildings of Manhattan's defunct garment district. Here, nineteenth-century factories and warehouses had been built using cast-iron frames, a construction method which allowed for large open-plan floors with expanses of glass between the main columns. space, light and low rents were the main attraction.

Over time, the trend moved from the margins to the mainstream, and across the Atlantic to Europe's capital cities. In the Nineties, post-recession London was fertile ground for some new ideas to lift the gloom, and loft living and all its modern conveniences became a defining feature of the millennium.

View Rathbone Street loft apartments and penthouses