The Shard

The Shard
The Shard in April 2015, viewed from the "Sky Garden" atop 20 Fenchurch Street
Former names	London Bridge Tower
Alternative names	Shard of Glass, Shard London Bridge
General information
Status	Complete
Architectural style	Neo-futurism
Location	London, SE1 United Kingdom
Coordinates	51°30′16″N 0°05′11″W / 51.5045°N 0.0865°W / 51.5045; -0.0865
Construction started	March 2009
Completed	July 2012
Opening	1 February 2013
Cost	~£435 million (contract cost only)
Owner	State of Qatar (95%) Sellar Property Group (5%)
Height
Architectural	309.6 m (1,016 ft)[6]
Observatory	244 m (801 ft)
Technical details
Floor count	95 (72 habitable)
Floor area	398,490m2 1,307,383sqft
Lifts/elevators	36
Design and construction
Architect	Renzo Piano
Developer	Sellar Property Group
Structural engineer	WSP Global (structural engineers), Robert Bird Group (concrete temporary works), Ischebeck Titan on most floors 40+ (concrete support)
Services engineer	Arup
Main contractor	Mace
References
[1][2][3][4][5]

The Shard (also referred to as the Shard of Glass,^[7][8] Shard London Bridge or the London Bridge Tower)^[9][10] is a high-rise building in Southwark, London. The Shard was built in July 2012. It is 310 metres (1,016 ft) high.^[11] It was the tallest building in the European Union until late 2020, and 96th tallest in the world. It is also the second-tallest free-standing structure in the United Kingdom, after the 330-metre (1,083 ft) concrete tower at the Emley Moor transmitting station.

The Shard replaced Southwark Towers, a 24-storey office building built on the site in 1975. Renzo Piano was the Shard's architect. Piano is best known for creating Paris’s Pompidou Centre in cooperation with Britain’s Richard Rogers. Piano worked with the architectural firm Broadway Malyan during the planning stage. The tower has 72 floors that can be used for offices, with a viewing gallery and open-air observation deck – the UK's highest – on the 72nd floor, at a height of 245 metres (804 ft). The Shard was designed with an irregular pyramidal shape from the bottom to the top, and is covered entirely in glass. Its structure was completed in April 2012. It opened to the public on 5 July 2012.

The Shard was designed in 2000. That year, the London-based entrepreneur Irvine Sellar decided to redevelop Southwark Towers, a 1970s office block next to London Bridge station, and flew to Berlin in March 2000 to meet Piano for lunch. According to Sellar, the architect spoke of his contempt for tall buildings during the meal, before flipping over the restaurant’s menu and sketching an iceberg-like sculpture emerging from the River Thames. He got his ideas from the railway lines next to the site, the London spires in the paintings of 18th-century Venetian painter Canaletto, and the masts of sailing ships.

In April 2008, demolition of Southwark Towers was going on. Scaffolding and white sheeting covered the building. By October, Southwark Towers was much shorter and was no longer visible on the skyline. The building's demolition was completed in early 2009, and site preparation began for the construction of the Shard.

1. ↑ The Shard: The Official Guidebook. Thames & Hudson (2013). p. 22. ISBN 9780500342848.
2. ↑ Piano, Renzo (2013). The Shard: London Bridge Tower (in English and Italian). Matador. p. 74. ISBN 978-88-6264-006-0.
3. ↑ "The Shard – The Skyscraper Center". Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Retrieved 26 April 2013.
4. ↑ The Shard at Emporis. Retrieved 27 November 2012.
5. ↑ "The Shard, London: Cost of Europe's Tallest Building". TheRichest.org. 15 July 2012. Archived from the original on 23 June 2013. Retrieved 15 November 2012.
6. ↑ "Shard London Bridge, London". SkyscraperPage.com. Retrieved 16 September 2017.
7. ↑ Bar-Hillel, Mira (24 February 2009). "£28bn Shard of Glass to start its ascent". London Evening Standard. Archived from the original on 27 May 2010. Retrieved 7 July 2010.
8. ↑ "Work starts on Shard of Glass". New Civil Engineer. 2 April 2009. Retrieved 7 July 2010.
9. ↑ "London Bridge Tower, London". Designbuild-network.com. 15 June 2011. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
10. ↑ "Shard funding crisis: Tower finances cast shadow over project". World Architecture News. 10 September 2007. Archived from the original on 29 March 2012. Retrieved 7 July 2010.
11. ↑ http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=2611