A new building, "The Shard", is appearing on the skyline of London, and it's set to be the tallest in the UK by a long way, and one of the most strikingly beautiful.
It's 10 years since property developer Irvine Sellar sat opposite architect Renzo Piano in a restaurant in Berlin. Sellar wanted a tall building for his site; Piano famously doesn't like tall buildings, but was persuaded to give it some thought, and on the back of a menu he began to sketch shapes inspired by the masts and sails of boats on the River Thames, and the church spires visible on the banks of the river; he gave his sketches bold lines inspired by the railway lines beneath the proposed site - and so evolved "The Shard".
However, the passage of a new building is never smooth, and Londoners are uncertain about their attitude to modern architecture. Sir Christopher Wren found this in the 17th century, when his first designs for St Paul's Cathedral were rejected outright for being too modern. The plans for the Shard went all the way to the Deputy Prime Minister's Office before they received definitive approval. In the face of objections from traditionalists like Prince Charles, who said “London seems to be turning into an absurdist picnic table. We already have a giant gherkin [Foster + Partners' 30 St Mary Axe building]; now it looks as if we are going to have an enormous salt cellar”, approval was finally obtained when the Deputy Prime Minister assured himself that this was a building of exceptional design and quality - ie one that London couldn't do without! And although we are uncertain about changing the profile of our city, we do have a history of taking exciting new buildings to our hearts - everyone now loves the highly controversial "Gherkin", and even its architect has been overheard using the nickname we've all adopted for it.
"The Shard" will be a very beautiful building, tapering into the sky like jagged pieces of broken glass, set against each other to catch and reflect the changing skies and light conditions. It will be highly efficient environmentally, and has been designed with 21st century safety standards to the fore. As a way of offering something back to the local community, the plan includes a new entrance to London Bridge station, which has always been notoriously difficult to find your way into! No more excuses for being late to work, then!
The bottom section will be offices, the top will be apartments with a price tag in the region of £10 million - and in the centre, a 5-star hotel belonging to the Shangri-La group. I'm looking forward to being able to try the hotel's 'infinity swimming pool', which will offer unrivalled views over London as you swim, or one of the top restaurants for a romantic meal looking down on the lights of the city. To cap it all, there will be a viewing platform for visitors.
The accommodation and facilities have already been put to test - by Romeo, a local fox cub. Yes, you read that correctly! A fox cub made its way up to the 72nd floor of this building site, in search of such delicacies as builders' discarded sandwiches, and it took two weeks to trap him and return him to ground level. My recommendation to Romeo would be to try Borough Market, just around the corner - a foodies' paradise!
What else is there to see in the area? Well, apart from the obvious Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the Tate Modern art gallery, or Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, just beneath the Shard is the Old Operating Theatre of St Thomas's Hospital; the poet John Keats began medical training at this hospital's school, and would have been familiar with the gruesome type of facilities exhibited here. The Fashion & Textile Museum is always worth a visit, with exhibitions of contemporary fashion design - 'Tommy Nutter: Rebel on Savile Row' will open in May. And a few moments down the road is the George Inn, a 17th century pub with galleries around a central courtyard - just the sort of place where plays and entertainments might have been performed during Shakespeare's lifetime.
