Shard / London Bridge Tower | Southwark | 309m | 72 fl

[cybertect]

From Wapping, first thing this morning: View Large

image hosted on flickr

Butlers Wharf Panorama by cybertect, on Flickr

[bertyboy]

A Wapping great view.

[BartSimpson]

Originally Posted by skillaz

cant tell if being sarcastic.....

either way, they used CGI.

Um, no they didn't. They had to close the roads on the nights of the 16th and 17th of June, you were somewhat correct I guess in that they had to use artificial lighting to make it seem like it was the daytime but they proudly said at the end of the ad NO CGI WAS USED.

[cybertect]

BTW, glazing has started going on to the lower level canopies on Joiner Street

[randolph]

I was therte at the weekend - most of the glass is still utterly filthy - why haven't they sorted it out yet?

[ill tonkso]

Pointless doing it now, as it will only get filthy again. Better to do it at the end.

[i_like_concrete]

Couple from Sunday

image hosted on flickr



image hosted on flickr

[OverOneThousand]

Originally Posted by ill tonkso

Pointless doing it now, as it will only get filthy again. Better to do it at the end.

So why are they always cleaning the bottom and top parts of the building but not the middle section?

[hugh]

Cybertect, the Butler's Wharf pano's a stunner, cheers for posting!

[spindrift]

The Shard is the perfect metaphor for modern London.

Expensive, off-limits and owned by foreign investors – the Shard extends the ways in which London is becoming more unequal

Next Thursday, a giant metaphor will be launched in London. The prime minister of Qatar will fly over especially; his supporting act will be Prince Andrew. Foreign dignitaries will be treated to a lavish dinner; lowly residents of the capital can gawk at a free laser show that threatens to out-do George Lucas.

This is how developers plan to "inaugurate" the Shard, the 72-storey skyscraper that already stalks Londoners everywhere they go. It glowers over your conversations in Peckham; it skulks in your eyeline as you amble along Hampstead Heath. Get up close to Europe's tallest tower, and its 1,017 feet (getting on for twice the height of the Gherkin) render everything around it toylike, laughable.

The money men behind the Shard would like the rest of us to treat it merely as a building. Ideally, you'd marvel at its jutting architecture (the work of Renzo Piano, don't you know); failing that, they'd take you castigating its arrogant flashiness.

But before falling for the predictable Shard-en freude, we should think again. Because what is approaching completion over on London's South Bank is almost the perfect metaphor for how the capital is being transformed – for the worse. The skyscraper both encapsulates and extends the ways in which London is becoming more unequal and dangerously dependent on hot money.

Consider again the story of the Shard. This is a high-rise that has been imposed on London Bridge despite protests from residents, conservation groups and a warning from Unesco that it may compromise the world-heritage status of the nearby Tower of London. What's more, its owners and occupiers will have very little to do with the area, which for all its centrality is also home to some of the worst deprivation and unemployment in the entire city. The building is 95% owned by the government of Qatar and its developer, Irvine Sellar, talks of it as a "virtual town", comprising a five-star hotel and Michelin-starred restaurants.

It will also have 10 flats that are on sale for between £30m to £50m, and from where on a clear day it will be easier to gaze out on to the North Sea, 44 miles away, than at the beetle-sized locals 65 floors down below. "We won't really market these apartments," the PR man cheerily told me. "At this level of the market, there are probably only 25 to 50 possible buyers in the world. The agents will simply phone them up."

So one of London's most identifiable buildings will have almost nothing to do with the city itself. Even the office space rented out at the bottom is intended for hedge funds and financiers wanting more elbow room than they can afford in the City or Mayfair. The only working-class Londoners will presumably bus in at night from the outskirts to clean the bins.

Otherwise, to all intents and purposes, this will be the Tower of the 1%.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...-modern-london

[larven]

Another terrible article from the increasingly shrill and paranoid Guardian.

[spindrift]

THE SHARD IS LITERALLY RUBBING DIRT IN THE FACE OF THE WORKERS.

It's actually quite hard to work out what the article's on about:

Shard is an excellent name. The original democrats of Athens wrote on pot shards when voting to ostrasize someone.

WTF?

[eddyk]

This article is repeated for every new skyscraper.

[Jamsterx]

It's a bit depressing to see that The Guardian is so pessimistic towards these types of things. The media needs to be more positive towards developments like this, or people reading the articles are gonna seriously get brainwashed by negativity. No wonder people look so sad on public transport

[ill tonkso]

So, I guess they forgot about the Public Viewing Deck then? And the rebuild of the Station Concourse that came with it? And the new shops that will open with 'The Place' (awful name) then?

[Willrocks10]

I think the Shard is good thing for London. What is the Guardian on about?!

[spindrift]

A main gripe seems to be that it's foreign money, but not all 2000 workers in the building will be foreign!

[potto]

and the only reason it is built with foreign money is because no British bank had the balls to fund such a long term investment

[spindrift]

From the comments:

You can be welcoming to immigrants in general but abhor foreign investment that produces nothing but higher property prices and rents for the existing population (40ish percent of whom are not 'white'). The 'foreign investment' that buys central London property as a safe haven for capital in turbulent economic times globally just pushes the next layer down, (the very rich who nonetheless want to live in the house they own) and that has a knock on effect until you get to me on £1060 salary a month and £520pcm rent.

London's is being slowly economically cleansed and we haven't even seen the full effects of the housing benefit cuts yet.

Next time there's a riot I hope the shard gets torched and parasitic foreign capital runs scared.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...rt-of-comments

I have heard an awful lot of Greek and Spanish money has been pumped into prestige London property.

[larven]

Originally Posted by Jamsterx

It's a bit depressing to see that The Guardian is so pessimistic towards these types of things.

The Guardian is pessimistic about everything these days. It's even worse than the Daily Wail.

There's no wonder it's hemorrhaging money left right and centre by continuing to publish drivel like this.