The Shard

Selected by

Peter Layton, Glass Artist

Peter Layton is one of the world’s most widely respected glass artists influencing, encouraging and nurturing several of this country’s leading glassmakers and inspiring many more internationally. “Glass is extraordinarily seductive”, explains Peter, “Every piece is an adventure and you never know exactly what you have created until you open the kiln and see how a piece has turned out. I love that moment of surprise.”
Location

32 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9SG

0844 499 7111
www.the-shard.com
Architect

Renzo Piano

Irvine Sellar, The Shard’s developer and joint owner, had an ambitious vision to create an architecturally striking vertical city incorporating retail, offices, hotel, apartments, restaurants and a public viewing gallery. His idea was to build a diverse vibrant community, and provide multiple areas within which the public could experience the building and its magnificent views. And all of this astride one of London’s major transport hubs.

Sellar had a vision of creating a world class building that would capture the public’s imagination. Renzo Piano did not initially share his enthusiasm on the basis that he hated tall buildings

“…they are arrogant, aggressive, like fortresses.”

Fortunately something about the area sparked his imagination and he agreed to undertake the project. There were considerable hurdles along the way but finally funding and the necessary permission were there, and building could start.

Taking inspiration from the spires of London churches and the masts of tall ships depicted by the 18th-century Venetian painter Canaletto, Renzo Piano designed The Shard as a spire-like sculpture emerging from the River Thames.

Eight sloping glass façades, the ‘shards’, define the shape and visual quality of the tower, fragmenting the scale of the building and reflecting the light in unpredictable ways. Opening vents in the gaps or ‘fractures’ between the shards, provide natural ventilation to winter gardens.

Unusually, the public has access to the building, to enjoy the vertiginous views from the top viewing platforms or eat at one of the building’s seven restaurants.
Interesting Facts

Pioneering engineering methods were used, such as top-down construction, where foundations are dug while the core is built up – a first for the UK. Over one 36-hour period – employing 700 lorry-loads, one every three minutes – the team poured 5,400 cubic metres of concrete.
Resources

The Shard website

As I write this, I have just returned from Athens, where I marvelled at the Acropolis and the Agora. It is interesting therefore to speculate on how long the building of my choice – the Shard – will endure. For years, I commuted by train from deepest Kent to London Bridge on my way to work at London Glassblowing, then situated in the Leather Market on Weston Street. Twice a day I would pass a modern building, Southwark Towers, and then suddenly it was gone, replaced by a deep hole being filled with metal and concrete. From the footbridge/viewing platform I watched the new building rise, level upon level on its central core until eventually there was an enormous glass spire towering into the sky – completely neck cricking stuff!

Renzo Piano the architect of the Shard © the-shard.com

It seemed that the building had a marmite effect on the public but I loved it from the very start. Watching it grow was awe inspiring – all that glass, a material for which I have a great affinity. I was amused to be invited to the opening where I met Irvine Sellars whose vision it was, together with Renzo Piano, and later my wife and I were guests at the Shangri-La Hotel prior to its official opening. We were given £1000 of fake money to spend on our accommodation and meals, which we managed to get through incredibly quickly, leaving the balance as a tip! How wonderful to lie in a bath gazing down from a great height at the Thames and the Tower of London.

I have a great view of it from my studio on Bermondsey Street and its form and structure have been the inspiration for a number of my cast glass sculptures, titled The Shard.
Peter Layton

I have no idea what Prince Charles thinks about the Shard, but I think, that like the Gherkin it is a great addition to the London skyline. Its cathedral-like spire can be see from almost anywhere in London and I love the way it changes scale as you approach and the way it reflects the sky, changing colour and mood depending on the time of day, the light or the weather.

I have a great view of it from my studio on Bermondsey Street and its form and structure have been the inspiration for a number of my cast glass sculptures, titled The Shard.

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