Description
The Shard is the glass pyramid rising 309.6 meters over London Bridge station, in Southwark on the south bank of the Thames: the tallest building in the United Kingdom, and the place to see all of London at once from its viewing gallery.
The main reason to go up is The View from The Shard, the observation deck near the top of the tower. Its viewing gallery and open-air deck on the 72nd floor sit 244 meters above the street, higher than any other public viewpoint in the country.
From up there London looks like a map, with the Thames winding through it and its bridges and towers far below. On a clear day the view reaches Walbury Hill, the furthest natural point visible from the top, close to Wiltshire.
The building itself is worth a look from below. Its facades are made of 11,000 panes of glass, angled so that they reflect the sky: the tower changes color with the weather and the seasons, silver on a clear morning, almost invisible against low gray clouds.
Below the viewing gallery the Shard is a small vertical city: offices, a television newsroom, a five-star hotel on floors 34 to 52 and three restaurants on floors 31 to 33, which give a high view of London with lunch or dinner.
The tower began with a sketch. The Italian architect Renzo Piano met the developer Irvine Sellar for lunch in Berlin in 2000 and, according to Sellar, turned over the menu and drew a spire rising from the Thames. Piano had in mind the city's church steeples, the masts of sailing ships and the London skylines painted by Canaletto.
The name came from its critics. English Heritage warned that the building would be "a shard of glass through the heart of historic London", and the nickname stuck. Inaugurated in July 2012, just before the Olympics, it went on to win the Emporis Skyscraper Award, whose judges already called it London's new emblem.
Don't miss
• The open-air deck on the 72nd floor.
• The view as far as Walbury Hill.
• The glass facades changing with the sky.
• The restaurants on floors 31 to 33.
Did you know?
• While the tower was being built, a fox lived at the top for a while, feeding on the builders' scraps: the staff called him Romeo.
• The Shard appeared in the film Children of Men in 2006, years before it existed, added to the skyline with a model and computer graphics.
The main reason to go up is The View from The Shard, the observation deck near the top of the tower. Its viewing gallery and open-air deck on the 72nd floor sit 244 meters above the street, higher than any other public viewpoint in the country.
From up there London looks like a map, with the Thames winding through it and its bridges and towers far below. On a clear day the view reaches Walbury Hill, the furthest natural point visible from the top, close to Wiltshire.
The building itself is worth a look from below. Its facades are made of 11,000 panes of glass, angled so that they reflect the sky: the tower changes color with the weather and the seasons, silver on a clear morning, almost invisible against low gray clouds.
Below the viewing gallery the Shard is a small vertical city: offices, a television newsroom, a five-star hotel on floors 34 to 52 and three restaurants on floors 31 to 33, which give a high view of London with lunch or dinner.
The tower began with a sketch. The Italian architect Renzo Piano met the developer Irvine Sellar for lunch in Berlin in 2000 and, according to Sellar, turned over the menu and drew a spire rising from the Thames. Piano had in mind the city's church steeples, the masts of sailing ships and the London skylines painted by Canaletto.
The name came from its critics. English Heritage warned that the building would be "a shard of glass through the heart of historic London", and the nickname stuck. Inaugurated in July 2012, just before the Olympics, it went on to win the Emporis Skyscraper Award, whose judges already called it London's new emblem.
Don't miss
• The open-air deck on the 72nd floor.
• The view as far as Walbury Hill.
• The glass facades changing with the sky.
• The restaurants on floors 31 to 33.
Did you know?
• While the tower was being built, a fox lived at the top for a while, feeding on the builders' scraps: the staff called him Romeo.
• The Shard appeared in the film Children of Men in 2006, years before it existed, added to the skyline with a model and computer graphics.