When drivers began using two new lanes of the Bayonne Bridge between Staten Island and New Jersey last month, they crossed not only the Kill Van Kull waterway but also a nexus between a historic engineering past and a modern engineering present.

The architecture and structure of London’s emerging 62-story building at 22 Bishopsgate bear no resemblance to its predecessor, called the Pinnacle, initially intended for the same site but abandoned soon after coming out of the ground.