London’s newest skyscraper is advancing floor by floor into the record books, but critics say The Shard and a rash of other towers under construction are ruining the capital’s historic skyline.
When it is finished next year, The Shard, a glistening triangle by world-renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano, will stand 310m high, becoming the highest tower in Europe.
Already the view from the 72nd floor — there are 15 more above it — is enough to bring on a serious bout of vertigo.
Photo: AFP
The tower dominates London’s skyline, dwarfing historic buildings like St Paul’s Cathedral and the Houses of Parliament, and is gaining height alongside about half a dozen other skyscrapers shooting up across the city.
Among these is the slightly curved top-heavy block nicknamed Walkie Talkie; The Cheese Grater, which is upright on one side and sloped on the other; and The Pinnacle, also dubbed The Helter-Skelter because of its spiral shape.
Peter Rees, the man in charge of planning in the City of London financial district for the past 25 years, is enthusiastic about the new buildings and cites the quirky names as proof of public support.
“It indicates that the public have noticed something which is distinctive, which needs to be given a personal name, a friendly name in a way that they wouldn’t if it was an anonymous building or something they disliked,” he said.
The trend for towering office blocks — and nicknames — began in 2003 with the Swiss Re building, universally known as The Gherkin despite the insurance firm’s efforts to use its address as its official name, 30 St Mary Axe.
Unlike in Paris, another capital full of historic buildings where the skyscrapers have been neatly arranged into certain districts, the London towers appear to have popped up all over the place like mushrooms.
In reality the buildings often take years to be approved — The Shard, a futuristic structure with huge splinters of glass pointing to the sky, took 12 years to come to fruition.
Concerns about the building prompted the former Labour government to hold a lengthy public inquiry before deciding in favor.
One of The Shard’s strongest critics is English Heritage, the national body responsible for protecting historic places. It says the tower has ruined a protected view of St Paul’s Cathedral, one of Britain’s most iconic monuments.
The Shard “is a marvelous building, but it’s in the wrong place,” the organization’s regional director Paddy Pugh said.
Although there is no maximum height for buildings in London, the authorities protect views of historic buildings from the river and surrounding hills.
This includes panoramas of St Paul’s, the Houses of Parliament, the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace from locations such as Parliament Hill in north London, one of the best places to survey the city.
From Parliament Hill, The Shard appears to stand right behind St Paul’s and absorbs its stately curves into its bulk, even if in reality the skyscraper is located several hundred meters away on the other side of the River Thames.
To those who cry sacrilege, Rees points out that Christopher Wren’s domed design for St Paul’s, which was the tallest building in London from its construction in 1710 until 1964, was itself hugely controversial.
“When it was constructed, London was used to gothic cathedrals with tall spires and to have this new continental invention of the dome appearing in London divided people,” he said. “I think urban areas need that sort of visual stimulation.”
For the opponents of London’s new skyline, there is some consolation, as the new mayor of London Boris Johnson has tightened restrictions to protect the city’s historic views in the future.
However, there is no getting away from The Shard, which grows taller by the day.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion