Just in time for the millennium, in 2000, the Italian architect Renzo Piano provided the project for the “Oskolka”. And it had to happen that it was at this time that entrepreneur Irwin Sellar was tormented by the problem of the technically outdated 25-storey business complex Southwark Towers, built in 1975. And as often happens in such cases, when one person wants to sell a lot, and the second simply dreams of buying it, they meet. This happened this time too - the parties met and agreed on everything.
But as often happens in such cases: the plans of some do not always satisfy others. And in this particular case, a number of public organizations came out sharply against it, citing, as usual, that the skyscraper would spoil the panorama of the city. The truth is, it is difficult to find residents in any city who would agree to the construction of such a giant near their side. But this is what distinguishes democracy from dictatorship; everyone can express their opinion, after which the discussion process is declared completed and everything goes on as usual. It took some time to agree on the nuances, but at the end of 2003 the project was approved by the authorities.
Further development of plans for the construction of the Shard began, including the demolition of the old Southwark Towers shopping center. But here, in the vastness from New York to Los Angeles, the rancid smell of the financial crisis was felt. And a number of backers, learning from past crises, have decided to pull out of the £350 million project. It would seem that everything: the skyscraper was covered with a naked basin. But no. A country has been found in which the crisis is not interesting as a phenomenon.
A group of investors from Qatar, led by the Prime Minister of the country, the Sheikh himself and the head of the National Bank of this Sheikhstan. Having initially bought 80% of the project, they then increased their share to 95 percent. When builders are paid, construction moves in the right direction at a good pace. It is this trend that Londoners have been able to observe firsthand. By the beginning of 2009, the dismantling of the old 25-floor business center was completely completed. Construction of The Shard began immediately without delay. In just four years, a 95-story tower with a height of 309.6 meters was erected. The cost of the project, as often happens in this business, has risen to 450 million pounds. Question: Did the sheikh from Qatar notice the difference?
The skyscraper itself is called the Shard because of its shape, which resembles an irregular pyramid and is covered with 11 thousand glass panels. The opening of the building took place on July 5, 2012. The premises from the 4th to the 28th floor are occupied by offices with a total area of 54,776 square meters. Floors 31 to 33 are rented by restaurants, while floors 34 to 52 are home to the five-star Shangri-La Hotel. On floors 53 to 65, the luxury apartments are the highest-rise housing in the UK. One of these apartments costs about 50 million pounds. The apartments occupy the entire floor and provide 360-degree views for their residents.
The Shard is the highest open-air observation deck in the UK. It is located on the 72nd floor, at an altitude of 245 meters. Probably based on such exclusivity, the cost of visiting was formed. But as they say: no hype. So hold your breath, as the famous satirist says, but entry to the observation deck costs £25 per visitor and £90 for a family of four. As for the view of London itself from its observation deck, it is of course stunning, provided that the weather is clear over the city.
If you are lucky twice, i.e. If you have the right amount of pounds in your pocket, and the weather is good, then from the observation tower you can see such attractions as Wembley Stadium, Brent Cross, Kew Gardens, Central Tower, St. Paul's Cathedral, Big Ben and Buckingham castle. By the way, the skyscraper is equipped with 44 elevators, which will always be ready to take you to the desired floor.
The opening ceremony of the Shard was attended by Qatari leaders, many British politicians, as well as Prince Andrew. As darkness fell, the audience was treated to a laser show accompanied by classical music performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
The skyscraper "The Shard" (translated into Russian as "The Shard"), located in the center of London, is currently the tallest building in the European Union. For some time, Oskolok was even the tallest building in Europe, but three months ago this title was taken away from it by one of the Moscow skyscrapers.
"The Shard" has a height of 309.6 meters. Compared to the Asian and American supergiants, these figures, of course, are not impressive. It is not surprising that in the global ranking of the tallest skyscrapers, the Shard is only in the fifth ten.
The tower was built in close proximity to the historical center of London. Even at the design stage, there was a lot of debate about how it would fit into the overall appearance of the capital of England, and whether the process of erecting such a high-rise next to them would harm the old buildings. Even UNESCO was involved in this issue.
However, by 2007, all disagreements were settled and preparations for construction began. The construction of the skyscraper was associated with a number of different problems. These include ground shifts near the construction zone, difficulties in delivering cement to the very center of London, and the financial crisis. The total estimate has increased from an estimated £350 million to £435 million. But all the difficulties were overcome and in July 2012 the grand opening of “The Shard” took place.
A skyscraper is used for a variety of purposes. From the 2nd to 28th floors there are offices, 31-33 - restaurants, 34-52 floors - Shangri-La Hotel, 53-65 - residential apartments (I’m afraid to even imagine how much an apartment will cost in the very center of London... millions.. tens of millions...), 68-72 floors - observatories and observation decks. General access to the observation decks opened only in February 2013, an adult ticket will cost you 25 pounds, a child - 19. But the view from there is truly amazing.
The famous 'postcard' view of the City of London's skyscrapers, with its original 'Gherkin Tower', appears to be beginning to be reflected on the opposite south bank of the Thames. Shard Tower(translated as “splinter”), which at the time of writing the article is the tallest building in Europe (310 meters), was inaugurated on July 5, 2012.
The opening was held on a grand scale - the Duke of York and the Prime Minister of Qatar took part in the ceremony, and in the evening thousands of Londoners watched a laser show. The main financing for the construction of the Shard tower was accepted by the Qatari government.
It is not for nothing that this London building is called " A fragment“It took 11 thousand glass panels. The building was conceived as an elegant, sparkling needle, its creators say. It is impossible to lose sight of it - it is strikingly different from other buildings in south London.
It was built in 3 years. In violation of traditional planning principles, the Shard is located away from other high-rise buildings. It is expected that the high-rise will house offices, restaurants and hotels. And also apartments, and there are no apartments located higher than in it in all of Western Europe.
Shard Tower Ratings divided, one might say “split.” Some say that it came from another dimension, destroys the existing panorama of London and would look better somewhere in Dubai.
Others see the high-rise as something unearthly, magical, some even compare it to the spire of a 21st century church - with the often changeable London weather, the top of the building is lost somewhere in the clouds and seems like an incredible sparkling staircase to the sky.
In any case, now “The Shard” can safely be called one of the most unusual and “eye-catching” sights in London.
Photo - panorama of London (left - City, right - Shard)
Former London mayor Ken Livingstone described the building as the London equivalent of New York's Empire State Building in an interview, saying: “The Shard has created 10,000 jobs in one of the most neglected and deprived areas of London. And, unlike many other high-rise buildings, Londoners will have access here.”
On one of the upper floors of the skyscraper there is observation deck View from The Shard, she received her first visitors in February 2013.
Tickets to the Shard Tower cost £25, and many Londoners have already expressed dissatisfaction with such a high price. However, it is comparable to the cost of visiting another popular “observation point” of the city -. Ticket price for children 4-15 years old is £19.
Without a doubt, your children will enjoy visiting such a “futuristic” London attraction.
Let us quote further report by RIA Novosti correspondent:
Visitors to the skyscraper are invited to become participants in high-tech and educational adventures.
Immediately at the entrance they are greeted by a wall with statements of famous people about London, then they find themselves in a corridor-gallery with portraits of famous Britons past and present in unusual situations. For example, London Mayor Boris Johnson shines the shoes of former mayor Ken Livingstone, Queens Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II ride scooters with their beloved dogs, William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens row in the same boat, and Margaret Thatcher and Karl Marx ride a tandem bicycle.
The elevators, which take visitors up to the 68th floor in a minute, project city views as they ascend or descend, and upon exiting the elevator, guests will be taken to a "cloud" floor with stories about different types of clouds.
There will be a closed observation deck on the 69th floor, and an open observation deck on the 72nd floor. The viewing radius in clear weather can reach 40 miles (64 kilometers). All city attractions will appear to the public in an unusual “top view” perspective.
For a complete overview, viewers are invited to use unique devices - “tell-scopes”, which can not only be aimed at objects below, but also supplement the views with stories about attractions and offer to compare their appearance at different times of the day and night.
The building also houses London's tallest shop, selling Shard-related memorabilia. Among them are furry fox cubs, the prototype of which was a fox that settled on a construction site and even managed to climb to the high floors of the building. The builders gave him the nickname Romeo and fed him until the veterinary service took him to a kennel and then released him back into his natural habitat.
Shard Tower - how to get there
More information at www.theviewfromtheshard.com
Opening hours: daily from 9.00 to 22.00, ticket offices open until 20.30
London Bridge Underground Station, Entrance is on Joiner Street, just off St Thomas' Street.
I already told you about ". And now here's another "patient" :-)
The opening ceremony of the tallest building in Europe at the moment - the Shard skyscraper - took place in London. The height of the structure is 310 meters. The construction cost exceeded $800 million. The 95-storey skyscraper (72 residential floors) rises directly above the Thames next to London Bridge.
The architect of the Shard is the Italian Renzo Piano, best known as the co-author of the Pompidou Center in Paris. British newspapers write that his new creation makes the night view of London look like footage from the famous science fiction films “Blade Runner” and “War of the Worlds.” The pointed tower really does look like a crystal shard.
The skyscraper houses a five-star hotel with 200 beds, three apartments worth $90 million each, and an observation deck. Three floors are dedicated to restaurants.
The building belongs... to the state of Qatar and personally to the Prime Minister of this country, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Thani. He attended the opening ceremony. The British side was represented by Prince Andrew, the son of Queen Elizabeth II. Those present were amazed by the large-scale laser show organized in honor of the event.
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But ordinary Londoners were no less amazed by the prices for tickets to the observation deck. They will begin to be sold no earlier than February 2013. According to press reports, the approximate cost of a ticket for an adult will be $40, and for a child - $27. In other words, to admire the views of London from the Shard, an ordinary family of four will have to shell out almost $140, which is a lot. For comparison, those who want to climb the Eiffel Tower in Paris pay $17 per ticket for an adult.
The shard was conceived on a scrap of napkin in a Berlin restaurant by architect Renzo Piano in 2000. It was inspired by railways, the London spiers of the Venetian painter Canaletto and the masts of ships of the past.
Until yesterday, the tallest building in Europe was considered the skyscraper in Frankfurt - the head office of Commerzbank. Its height is 259 meters. He has held the record since 1997. “Oskolok” can hardly count on such a long period, since “Mercury City”, which is already under construction in Moscow, reaches a height of 310.8 meters. When the construction of this business center is completed, its height will be 332 meters. But the Shard will remain the tallest skyscraper in the European Union after this. The world record belongs to the Burj Khalifa building in Dubai - 828 meters.
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The Shard's surface consists of several upward-pointing acute-angled edges. Their tops converge at the highest point of the pyramid, but they do not touch, so it seems as if the structure is hollow inside.
London has made the new building one of the tallest in Europe with a fantastic laser show. Multi-colored rays colored the edges of the “Shard,” filling it with radiance.
The ceremony was attended by members of the royal family, as well as the Prime Minister of Qatar. It was this country that acted as the investor of the ambitious project.
Construction of the Shard cost 1.5 billion pounds ($2.35 billion). The grandiose building has 72 floors of office and residential premises. Above, in the sharp “spire” of the building, there are another 15 technical floors.
Although the Shard is the tallest European building, it is only 59th on the list of the tallest skyscrapers in the world. At the same time, “Shard” will not be at the top of the “high rating” for long.
After the completion of the Federation Tower complex in Moscow, its Eastern skyscraper with a height of 360 meters (509 meters including the spire) will become the tallest building in Europe.
Another Moscow City building, after completion of construction, will be higher than the Oskolok - this is the Mercury City Tower skyscraper, whose height should be 327 meters, ITAR-TASS reports.
And here is the opening procedure itself :-)
1. Twelve lasers and thirty spotlights lit up the London night sky during the official opening ceremony of the tallest building in Europe. (Picture: Bethany Clarke/Getty Images)
2. “The Shard” against the backdrop of Tower Bridge. (Picture: Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images)
3. The building belongs to the Qatari company LBQ Limited (80%), part of the State of Qatar and the British Sellar Property Group (20%). The cost of construction work, which lasted over three years, amounted to approximately £450 million. (Picture: Jason Hawkes/Barcroft)
4. The opening ceremony was attended by the Duke of York, Andrew, and the Prime Minister of Qatar, Hamad bin Jaber Al Thani. In addition to the laser show, musicians of the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed works of world classics. (Picture: Matthew Lloyd/Getty Images)
5. On the 69th floor of the skyscraper, the UK's highest public observation deck will open in February 2013. (Picture: REUTERS/Olivia Harris)
6. (Picture: AP Photo/Sang Tan)
Technical Supervision. - of course, all this is present during the operation of this building.
7. Of the 95 floors, 72 will be residential. 8 escalators and 44 elevators will move people around the building. (Picture: Bethany Clarke/Getty Images)
8. The skyscraper consists of 11 thousand glass panels. (Picture: Getty Images)
9. The Shard's silhouette can be seen from almost anywhere in the city (Picture: Jason Hawkes / Barcroft)
10. (Picture: REUTERS/Olivia Harris)
Look, it’s interesting to look at the history of construction quickly
Do you remember in St. Petersburg they wanted to build a Gazprom Igloo? Everyone was extremely outraged. Maybe right... but in London they approached this more pragmatically :-)
Do you think they ruined London for nothing? Although it doesn't seem to be the first time. I'll tell you later about other skyscrapers in London :-)
The Shard skyscraper - the Shard - really looks like a shard of glass: a sparkling narrow pyramid (11 thousand glass panels were used during construction), as if split from above. The Shard, built on the south bank of the Thames in 2012, was considered the tallest building in Europe for three months until it was overtaken by Moscow's Mercury City Tower. Now the British have to call the Shard the tallest building in Western Europe.
309.6 meters - because of this height, there were fierce discussions in the UK: should London measure its skyscrapers with the continent or is it better to protect its sky line? The opponents of the high-rises lost, the Shard was built. It was erected on the site of a modest twenty-four-story Southwark Towers - removing it and putting up something huge was the idea of London entrepreneur Irvine Sellar. The Sharda project was developed by Renzo Piano, the famous Italian architect, author of the Parisian Center Georges Pompidou. Piano claimed that he despised high-rise buildings - but apparently not too much, since Sellar managed to persuade him. Sellar said that he persuaded him during lunch, and Piano was against it all the time, and then he took the menu and began to sketch an iceberg on it, as if emerging from the Thames.
Piano later said that he was inspired by the railway lines passing nearby, the spiers of London churches, which Canaletto painted in the 18th century, and the masts of sailing ships. It’s hard to say whether the Shard is similar to all this, but it’s too late to discuss, it’s already standing - 72 floors of offices, restaurants, hotel rooms and apartments.
For tourists, the skyscraper is interesting primarily for its upper floors - there are observation decks that are almost twice as high as any others in London. The venues opened in February 2013, and in the first three months more than 300 thousand people visited them. Tickets are expensive, it is better to buy them online, it will be cheaper.
The tourist takes a high-speed elevator (little does he know that people have already gotten stuck in it once) and finds himself on a narrow platform with glass walls. Having found a free seat, the tourist, through his own reflection, sees a panorama of the city from a helicopter flight - the small “Eye of London”, the toy St. Paul’s Cathedral, the pitiful skyscrapers of the City and the Isle of Dogs. In good weather, the viewing range from the tower is 64 kilometers, and in bad weather, for a fee, you can use high-tech telescopes that show recorded views of London. Visitors are allowed from 9 am to 10 pm so they can enjoy both sunrises and sunsets.
On the 72nd floor there is a so-called open area (of course, it is only partially open). The strong wind noise reminds the tourist at what height the attraction is located.