After the Great Fire of London destroyed much of the medieval City in 1666, Christopher Wren, John Evelyn and others submitted Baroque master plans proposing wide radial avenues, geometric piazzas and monumental vistas to replace the tangled lanes. Wren's scheme in particular drew on Continental ideas of axial, rational urban design. The plans were drafted within days of the fire but were never implemented. Reconstruction instead followed the existing property boundaries, governed by the 1667 Rebuilding Act.
The episode became an iconic case of the comprehensive rational plan defeated by entrenched property rights and the need for rapid rebuilding. It illustrates a recurring tension in planning between grand top-down design and the incremental reality of land ownership.