Italian Architect Renzo Piano’s Shard will be officially inaugurated with a light show across London tonight. The Shard is the tallest building in the EU and the 45th tallest in the world but unfortunately you can’t see Italy from the top.
Piano, son of a Genoese building contractor, worked in Louis Kahn’s Philadelphia office before joining Richard Rogers to win the 1971 competition for the Pompidou Center in Paris, perhaps his best known work. He won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998.
He says, “This building is not going to be a symbol of arrogance” and calls it “a little town”. The Shard overlooks London’s oldest bridge and stands on the site of a newly discovered Roman villa.
As tonight is the light show signifying the completion of the Shard, a friend of mine has forwarded me a link to a photographer who has created an interactive 360 view from the top of the building - Shard 360
I have to say it takes a tad getting used to when moving the camera around as it feels like using a flight simulator. Check out the rest of his work as well, there are some beautiful and somewhat clever views and landscapes.
Onwards and upwards!
More Shard links: