The Shard
Critics once wanted to stop a 'shard of glass' being driven through London's skyline. The nickname stuck, and so did the tower: at 309.6 metres it is the UK's tallest building.
Published
.jpg){kind=link}
Quick Facts
- Location
- London Bridge, on the south bank of the Thames in London
- Height
- 309.6 metres (1,016 ft), the tallest building in the UK
- Architect
- Renzo Piano, also co-designer of the Pompidou Centre in Paris
- Developer
- Irvine Sellar, with Qatari investors backing the project from 2008
- Built
- Construction from 2009; inaugurated July 2012; public viewing floors opened February 2013
- Storeys
- 95 in total, including 72 habitable floors
- Original name
- London Bridge Tower
- Shape
- Eight sloping glass faces that never quite meet at the top
The building that was named by its critics
The Shard's name began as an insult. When the plans were first debated around 2000, objectors said a giant glass sliver would slice through the historic fabric of London. The developers' official name was the rather dull London Bridge Tower. The press picked up the 'shard of glass' line, and it caught on so well that the name became permanent. It is a rare case of a nickname born in opposition ending up on the building itself. Renzo Piano, who designed it, saw the tower differently. He said he took inspiration from the spires of London's churches and from the masts of ships in old paintings of the Thames, including the Venetian views of Canaletto.
A site that was already a skyscraper
The Shard did not rise from empty ground. It replaced Southwark Towers, an office block from the 1970s, which was demolished in the late 2000s to clear the way. The man behind the new scheme was the property developer Irvine Sellar, who spent years pushing the idea of a tall, slender tower right beside London Bridge station, one of the city's busiest transport hubs. Building tall above the trains and the Tube made sense to him. The idea matched a planning argument for dense, high buildings at major transport interchanges. The financial crisis nearly derailed the project, but Qatari investors came in around 2008 and construction started in 2009. The tower topped out in 2012.
Why it isn't a pyramid (and isn't a spike)
Look closely and the Shard is not a simple pyramid. It has eight sloping glass faces, and they stop short of meeting at a point. Instead they fade out at the top in a jagged, splintered finish, which is where the 'shard' look comes from. The gaps are more than decoration. The upper levels are partly open to the air, so the very top of the tower is not fully sealed in glass. It is also not all glass underneath. The tower stands on a steel and concrete structure, with a concrete core running up through its centre. The glass is the skin.
One tower, many lives
The Shard was designed as a vertical neighbourhood. Offices sit in the lower floors. Restaurants come above them, then a hotel, then private residences, and finally the public viewing floors near the top. The View from The Shard opened in February 2013, with its main viewing level on floor 72. Visitors look down on Tower Bridge, the curve of the Thames and the City's other towers, and in good weather they can see for many miles across the capital and beyond. A fair correction to a common claim: the Shard is the tallest building in the UK, but not the tallest in Europe. Taller towers stand elsewhere on the continent, notably in Russia.
The day six women climbed it
In July 2013, when the tower was only months old, six Greenpeace activists climbed the outside of it to protest against Arctic oil drilling. They reached the top, in full view of London, and the stunt made headlines around the world. It showed that the Shard had become more than an office block. It was now a stage, as instantly recognisable as Big Ben or St Paul's. That is partly why the Shard turns up so often in film, in television and in photographs of the capital. It is one of the few buildings that tells you the city at a glance.
What to look out for when you're there
From the street, stand by London Bridge station and look straight up. The glass faces catch the weather: on bright days they can look almost white, and on grey days they blur into the cloud. Walk a few minutes and you can see how the tower sits alongside much older neighbours. Southwark Cathedral, Borough Market and the Thames path are all close by, so the Shard can be a starting point for a much older part of London. From the top, try picking out the bends of the river and the dome of St Paul's. The view is at its best around sunset, when the city's lights begin to come on.
Notable people
- Renzo Piano
- Irvine Sellar
Test yourself
Play the UK quizMore to see nearby
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich
Published
You can stand with one foot in the east and one in the west, but the real story of Greenwich is how a king's astronomer helped sailors find their way home.
Hampton Court Palace
Published
Henry VIII's kitchens at Hampton Court once fed around 600 people twice a day, and the palace's famous maze was planted for a Dutch king to get lost in.
Kew Gardens
Published
Kew's pagoda once wore 80 gilded dragons, and its seedlings helped reshape the economies of three continents. Here's the botanical powerhouse hiding beside the Thames.