The Shard
The Shard (also referred to as the Shard of Glass,[6][7] Shard London Bridge or the London Bridge Tower)[8][9] is a high-rise building in Southwark, London. The Shard was built in July 2012. It is 309.6 metres (1,016 ft) high.[10] 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 | |
|---|---|
 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°WCoordinates: 51°30′16″N 0°05′11″W / 51.5045°N 0.0865°W |
| Construction started | March 2009 |
| Completed | July 2012 |
| Cost | ~£435 million (contract cost only) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 95 (72 habitable) |
| Floor area | 398,490m2 1,307,383sqft |
| Elevators | 36 |
| Design and construction | |
| Owner | State of Qatar (95%) Sellar Property Group (5%) |
| Main contractor | Mace |
| 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 |
| References | |
| [1][2][3][4][5] | |
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.
Layout
Each floor of The Shard is used for a particular purpose. The majority of the building is used for accommodation and for offices. On the higher floors, they are reserved specifically for the purposes of taking views of the entire city, which takes advantage of how significantly tall the building is.
| Floors | Floor area | Space designation |
|---|---|---|
| 73–95 | Spire | |
| 68–72 | 758 m2 (8,159 sq ft) | Observatory |
| 53–65 | 5,772 m2 (62,129 sq ft) | Residential apartments |
| 52 | Spa | |
| 34–52 | 16,198 m2 (174,354 sq ft) | Shangri-La Hotel |
| 31–33 | 5,945 m2 (63,991 sq ft) | Restaurants |
| 2–28 | 54,488 m2 (586,504 sq ft) | Offices |
| 1 | 2,102 m2 (22,626 sq ft) | Lobby |
Source: Shard London Bridge brochure, 2010
The Shard Media
The Southwark Towers office block, which was demolished in 2008 to make way for The Shard
Audio description of the building by Steven Berkoff
Internal structure of the Shard's spire and radiator floors, seen from the 72nd-floor observatory
The Shard of Glass - a 1000ft, 72-storey skyscraper under construction at London Bridge, Southwark. February 2010.
Shard London Bridge under construction in July 2010.
The Shard London Bridge in late September 2010, as seen from the south bank end of London Bridge.
Shard November
Shard London Bridge in January 2011.
Shard London Bridge under construction in April 2011
The Shard in august 2011
Sources
- ↑ The Shard: The Official Guidebook. Thames & Hudson (2013). p. 22. ISBN 9780500342848.
- ↑ Piano, Renzo (2013). The Shard: London Bridge Tower (in English and Italian). Matador. p. 74. ISBN 978-88-6264-006-0.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link) - ↑ "The Shard – The Skyscraper Center". Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. Retrieved 26 April 2013.
- ↑ The Shard at Emporis. Retrieved 27 November 2012.
- ↑ "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.
- ↑ Bar-Hillel, Mira (24 February 2009). £28bn Shard of Glass to start its ascent. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23651085-28bn-shard-of-glass-to-start-its-ascent.do. Retrieved 7 July 2010.
- ↑ "Work starts on Shard of Glass". New Civil Engineer. 2 April 2009. http://www.nce.co.uk/news/structures/work-starts-on-shard-of-glass/1996445.article. Retrieved 7 July 2010.
- ↑ "London Bridge Tower, London". Designbuild-network.com. 15 June 2011. Retrieved 6 July 2012.
- ↑ "Shard funding crisis: Tower finances cast shadow over project". World Architecture News. 10 September 2007. http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=1387. Retrieved 7 July 2010.
- ↑ http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=2611
Other websites
- Official website
- The Shard on Twitter
- The Shard Special Archived 2012-10-02 at the Wayback Machine on Estates Gazette
| Records | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by One Canada Square |
Tallest building in London 2010—Present 310 m |
Succeeded by None |
| Preceded by One Canada Square |
Tallest building in the United Kingdom 2010—Present 310 m |
Succeeded by None |