…at the Shard, designed to make us feel like the city was ready for it

The Shard is a building full of personality whose design aspirations prioritise an effort to function with the city instead of making a grand formal gesture. Renzo Piano managed this and more: he built a skyscraper that functions aesthetically from every distance, from every perspective, at every time of the day.

Renzo Piano built a skyscraper that functions aesthetically from every distance, from every perspective, at every time of the day.

The reflection on the glass planes changes with the colours of the sky and the city, blending the slender tower with its surroundings until it disappears at the inexistent meeting point of the skyscraper’s many facades. The cityscape-conscious nature of the building has morphed seamlessly into a part of the London skyline of unprecedented aesthetic benevolence.

The great achievement of the Shard is to manage the contradiction between standing tall and being integrated with the city. The tower was designed to make us feel like the city was ready for it, like a spot next to the river had always been waiting for it. It resembles a shard of glass coming out of the ground- hence the nickname- and houses multiple uses within its more than seventy floors, following the concept of a ‘vertical city’.

The great achievement of the Shard is to manage the contradiction between standing tall and being integrated with the city.

Its multi-facetted silhouette breaks down the scale of the building; a difficult but important goal for a structure of such dimensions that wants to avoid being overbearing. The result is a tower that is unquestionably unique, but whose effect on the London landscape is a subtle and welcome one.

The vision of a skyscraper that could be kind and considerate is what trumped the architect’s general opposition to the tower as a building typology. When he was first approached about the project Renzo Piano was wary of the skyscraper’s stereotype as a self-serving structure, and of the alienating effect a building like it could have, given its history as a symbol of power. The hope that the building could become more about the city than about signature shapes is what encouraged the architect to take it on. When it was finished, the Shard became the tallest building in London, although, as Renzo Piano has remarked on several occasions, not for long!

Skyscrapers tend to compete with each other and the race for the top is ever present in the world of development. If something characterises the Shard, however, it is its indifference to this type of competition. Piano’s awareness of the danger of making an arrogant building translated into a desire to make the tower more community oriented than its colossus counterparts, where immaterial features like lightness and transparency dominate any other attempts to make the building an iconic protrusion of the landscape.

The Shard is teeming with emotional intelligence, a building that likes us and wants to be liked in return. It transmits this feeling through its ever-changing colour, always in keeping with the mood of the sky and the city, and through its determination to blend into the heights instead of dominating the views. When we see the building at a distance, the inspiration it draws from church spires and ship masts becomes apparent.

Much like these historical urban elements, the peculiar top of the Shard rises above the city, visible but inconspicuous, solid but seemingly see-through with its ability to not obstruct or dominate the view. The extremely light top of the building almost seems to vanish into the sky, a veritable feat of design at 310 metres high. In Renzo Piano’s words, it is the consequence of a desire “to not fill the sky”.

The fact that the architect did not generally like skyscrapers has great consequences for Londoners. Self-consciousness paired with constructive self-criticism helped attain what seems almost impossible… a building that both pleases and belongs, that fascinates us with its shape while being in tune with the city, even if it stands alone on the South of the river.

Despite its dimensions, the building reads as part of the landscape more than it does a single structural unit; the positive consequence of a conscious effort to take into account the surrounding context. Most skyscrapers are designed as figures that could be plunged into any city, or any area of the city, because they are seen as structures emancipated from their surroundings. But the Shard is different, whether we look at it from Primrose Hill or from London Bridge, the building makes us feel like it was designed with our point of view in mind.

If there is a characteristic feature of Piano’s architecture is that it is uncharacteristic. Unlike other contemporary architects who focus on having a “signature look” in their buildings, Piano focuses on finding the best solution for each building within its unique context. He embraces the fact that this may mean using different aesthetic approaches and shaping strategies. He beautifully describes this approach by arguing that every building is a story, and you can’t tell a story successfully if you limit yourself to using the same few words every time.

This boils down to the idea of freedom in design: freedom from expectations, freedom from pressures and, perhaps most importantly, freedom from a desire to be immediately recognised… the end result is architecture for the city’s sake instead of for the architect’s sake. In the case of the Shard, the city was given a building that could have been designed by anyone, but which undoubtedly belongs to all Londoners.

The Shard teaches us about consideration and about self-critique in order to achieve the best version of ourselves, about keeping our bearings true even when tempted to put ourselves first. During the design process of the Shard, one can imagine Renzo Piano seeing compromises as negligence – inexcusable mistakes that would have led to the detriment of the London skyline. The fact that he didn’t compromise is a gift to all Londoners.

The final result is a wonderful addition to the city, a unique structure that is iconic in its sense of belonging, standing out for its design and blending in precisely because of it. The lack of egotism in the design is the key to the building’s success. A fine embodiment of the saying that the best leaders are often those who don’t want to lead.