THE SHARD
The Shard is the tallest building in
Western Europe and it is more than 300 m high.
It took 4 years to build, using
1,500 builders, 12 tons of steel
frame and 50,000 cubic metres of
concrete.
The person with this idea was
Irvine Sellar who said "I am not a
rational man, a rational man
would have given up."
The architect was Renzo Piano
and he drew his first picture of
the Shard on a napkin.
It cost £1.9 billion pounds to build.
They started building it in May 2008
and finished it in 2012.
Before they started building, they
first had to break down an office
which took 14 months.
They had to be careful taking away
the building because as one
spokesman said "It's like taking your
foot away from sand, all the rest of
the sand fills the hole."
During building they found a fox on
floor 72.
It has enough glass to cover 8
football pitches and enough concrete to fill 19 Olympic swimming pools.
Inside the Shard there is:
- floor 0 - 1 - London Bridge Station
- floor 2 - 3 - Shard Lobby
- floor 4 - 28 - Shard Offices
- floor 29 - 33 - Bars and Restaurants
- floor 34 - 52 - Shangri-la hotel
- floor 53 - 65 - residences
- floor 66 - 72 - View from the Shard
- floor 73 - 95 - The spire.
The Shard
The View from
The Shard.