Discover Shoreditch, London’s creative urban neighbourhood, with its ever-changing mix of creatives, underground clubs, innovative offices, pop-up retail and street art. This part of East London brings together 2,000 years of history, where old and new are fused, adapted and reinvented. From the rag trade and furniture industries of the 1800s to today’s high-tech pioneers of information, data and creative ideas, Shoreditch has always been a place of change.

David Adjaye’s landmark visual arts gallery at Rivington Place confirmed Shoreditch’s architectural and cultural credentials, alongside large-scale retrofits such as the iconic Tea Building factory, originally built over 100 years ago and transformed by AHMM.

Close by, on Curtain Road, is the mammoth new residential and office development The Stage by Perkins&Will, named for the area’s important Shakespearean associations.The Stage & Museum of Shakespeare: Perkins&Will’s 37-storey mixed-use development is built above the excavated remains of the 16th-century Curtain Theatre, where Shakespeare’s plays, including Romeo and Juliet, were first performed. The development incorporates an underground museum housing the archaeological remains.

Boxpark: Roger Wade’s pioneering pop-up retail space, created from recycled shipping containers, became a symbol of modern pop-up culture and Shoreditch’s entrepreneurial spirit.

The tour will also explore two of the biggest new developments on the City fringe. Bishopsgate Goodsyard is a major 10-acre regeneration project incorporating the historic Braithwaite Arches and plans for a High Line-style public park by Spacehub, alongside work by local conservation architect Chris Dyson, whose practice has played a vital role in the sensitive adaptation and regeneration of historic buildings in the area.

Another major transformation is the continuing redevelopment of the Truman Brewery, where Shoreditch’s historic tradition of beer making meets the modern worlds of creative industries, technology and data. The brewery provides another fascinating example of how the area’s industrial past is being adapted for a very different future.

Looking back, we will visit London’s early experiment in mass social housing at Boundary Estate & Arnold Circus. Built in 1890 by the LCC to replace the notorious “Old Jago” slum, the estate became one of Britain’s earliest major Arts & Crafts council estates and a milestone in the history of social housing.

We discover the pioneering Black & White Building: designed by Waugh Thistleton, this cross-laminated timber (CLT) structure represents a new generation of low-carbon construction and is one of London’s most significant engineered-timber office buildings.

And finally, perhaps the perfect symbol of Shoreditch itself: Village Underground — a former railway viaduct transformed into a creative space, with recycled Tube carriages mounted above the arches. It brings together many of the themes of the walk: industrial heritage, adaptive reuse, creativity and the constant reinvention of Shoreditch.

Along the way, we will also encounter some of the area’s ever-changing street art, independent culture and creative spaces — adding another layer to a neighbourhood where architecture, history and contemporary life continually overlap.