Rarely does glass get to show itself off in such a dramatic and permanent way. The Shard, London’s newest and the EU’s soon-to-be tallest skyscraper, displays glass to city of London and beyond in a which makes people really sit up and acknowledge glass and all it’s incredibility. It’s puts it at the forefront of people’s minds whenever they see it. The tower itself is designed to look like the material from most of which it is made.

Time for some impressive stats courtesy of the Financial Times:

  • The Shard is covered in 11,000 panes of glass, which when laid out flat would cover 8 football pitches (soccer pitches for our overseas friends!).
  • All 11,000 panes are different, not one is identical to another.
  • The Shard, when finished, will measure at 310m/1016ft tall.
  • Total glass area: 56,000sqm2.
  • Total steel used: 11,836 tonnes.
  • Tallest crane used: 255 meters.

The one slightly disappointing fact about the glass is that the panes are produced and cut in Holland. I would have thought that with such a large and long established glazing industry in this country, the panes could have been manufactured here.

Floors 2-28 are occupied by offices. 31-33 are dedicated to restaurants while Britain’s first Shangri-La hotel takes up floors 34-52. Luxury apartments can be found on floors 53-65 while the observatory takes up the final four floors, 68-72.

The Shard (who’s original project name was London Bridge Tower), shows off the spectacular uses of glass. We take glass for granted sometimes. It makes our glasses, our tables. It covers pictures and blocks the holes in the walls of our home. It’s the TV screen and it’s the mobile phone material of choice. We probably take it for granted because it’s been around for thousands of years. But it’s so integrated into our daily lives we forget it’s there…until we drop and glass then we all panic like mad!

What The Shard does, other than being part of a £2bn redevelopment of Southwark and making the skyline ever more impressive, is it puts back into focus a material without which, we wouldn’t be able to function.