Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

The Shard Tower in London

ExtraRefined said:
You're just sore there isn't an all seeing eye at the top
Click to expand...

Got a bit of space at the top now aint they??????

How convenient!!!!!!!!!

Its been planned this way from the start!!!!!

I await the giant eyeball on the end of the crane pic as its hoisted into place, with huge flocks of flying black demon lizards in attendance
 
I took these pics when flying over it yesterday - the smog was very noticeable.

shard2.jpg

shard1.jpg
 
Major landmark in the construction process today - the last concrete floor has been poured (69th floor). The blue 'crown' of formwork will be taken down once it's set, and then the all-steel spire can start going in towards the end of September. That should be pretty rapid, as it's all pre-fabricated in sections. Should be topped out by Christmas, easy :)
 
Has anyone posted this article on the shard yet? http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/19/shard-london-skyscraper?INTCMP=SRCH

I'm afraid I agree with him on a lot of it. The aesthetics of it I don't much care about, but I see the horrible (lack of) future it symbolises every time I look at it.

Even today, plenty of people will defend this transparently misconceived and prodigiously cocksure colossus, in the misguided belief that it advances modern design. But it merely represents the most corporate and unenlightened traditions of high-level business architecture, superficially dressed in a symmetrical glass skin. Funded, since 2008, mainly by a consortium of Qatari investors, The Shard is not an avant-garde revelation of new possibilities for London. It is quite obviously and even gleefully the imposition of a style of architecture that is banal, moneyed, and grimly businesslike. It would fit into any financial district on earth. And anywhere on earth it would say the same thing, that finance is king.
Click to expand...
It has come to us from a dystopia where the rulers of the world pass their lives in glass towers way above the mean streets. Down there the excluded loot and burn, and the sky-dwellers profess to be shocked by their lack of morality.
Click to expand...
 
I honestly don't think it does. It's just another glass box of a slightly different shape to me. As he says, bland business architecture. But big and pointy.

And deeply depressing in terms of what now dominates London's skyline: big money that operates in its own world, nothing to do with the rest of us.
 
Brainaddict said:
And deeply depressing in terms of what now dominates London's skyline: big money that operates in its own world, nothing to do with the rest of us.
Click to expand...

This I do agree with. Although it will be worth a trip to the top for the view...
 
Brainaddict said:
And deeply depressing in terms of what now dominates London's skyline: big money that operates in its own world, nothing to do with the rest of us.
Click to expand...
Apart from the London Eye.

Did you prefer it when the skyline was dominated by concrete tower blocks?
 
Maggot said:
Apart from the London Eye.

Did you prefer it when the skyline was dominated by concrete tower blocks?
Click to expand...
At this point I'd prefer it if it was dominated by homes for people with low incomes to live in, yes. There was never any particular reason - aside from architectural fashion - for most of the older tower blocks to be as ugly as they were.
 
Brainaddict said:
And deeply depressing in terms of what now dominates London's skyline: big money that operates in its own world, nothing to do with the rest of us.
Click to expand...

What are we to have dominating the skyline if not corporate splurges. Hospitals spread over 113 floors? Towering primary schools and 89th floor community centres? Even if you can justify the practicalities, you'd have to justify the added expense in a largely flat city like London (might be easier in somewhere like Hong Kong).

What we can easily do is ensure that when corporations do spend money on tall buildings, that they look good.
 
bi0boy said:
What are we to have dominating the skyline if not corporate splurges. Hospitals spread over 113 floors? Towering primary schools and 89th floor community centres? Even if you can justify the practicalities, you'd have to justify the added expense in a largely flat city like London (might be easier in somewhere like Hong Kong).

What we can easily do is ensure that when corporations do spend money on tall buildings, that they look good.
Click to expand...
Cos when you're getting royally screwed by an international financial and business elite its important to have your skyline lookin' good :p
 
I was looking forward to the forthcoming da Vinci exhibition at the National Gallery, now I realise I'd only be endorsing the grasping tyranny of the Medici.
 
To be honest if I were in Florence at the time of the Medicis and poor as dirt and saw some display of opulence created by Da Vinci I'd have the strong impulse to destroy it. This would, in your book, make me a philistine, but there is more to life than aesthetics and its absurd to suddenly decide that one particular way of viewing the world should dominate your reaction to something. Quite possibly I would decided a Da Vinci painting was beautiful and decide to destroy it anyway to make a point. Would you be outraged? I hope so :)
 
Also, the comparison between the two doesn't quite work. The Shard, as well as being a symbol of wealth, is in itself a profit machine. That is its primary purpose. It is bordering on being its only purpose. It will extract money from London for the benefit of a few.
 
Brainaddict said:
To be honest if I were in Florence at the time of the Medicis and poor as dirt and saw some display of opulence created by Da Vinci I'd have the strong impulse to destroy it. This would, in your book, make me a philistine, but there is more to life than aesthetics and its absurd to suddenly decide that one particular way of viewing the world should dominate your reaction to something. Quite possibly I would decided a Da Vinci painting was beautiful and decide to destroy it anyway to make a point. Would you be outraged? I hope so :)
Click to expand...

Please don't make things up.
 
Brainaddict said:
Also, the comparison between the two doesn't quite work. The Shard, as well as being a symbol of wealth, is in itself a profit machine. That is its primary purpose. It is bordering on being its only purpose. It will extract money from London for the benefit of a few.
Click to expand...
How will it do that?
 
Crispy said:
80% of the project is owned by Qatari investors
Click to expand...
Wouldn't make a blind bit of difference if it was owned by British investors though. It would still be a few people benefitting, they would still smuggle the money out the country so they didn't have to pay tax. They would still believe it was their money and they didn't owe any of it to all the people who live around them in the largest area of social housing in the UK - even though their particular profit machine will clearly increase demand for housing in the area, thus putting up social housing rents, which, along with the benefits cap will all help in the purging of poor people from Southwark.

Whether or not you find the building ugly, you surely can't help seeing the politics of it as ugly.
 
Brainaddict said:
Wouldn't make a blind bit of difference if it was owned by British investors though. It would still be a few people benefitting, they would still smuggle the money out the country so they didn't have to pay tax. They would still believe it was their money and they didn't owe any of it to all the people who live around them in the largest area of social housing in the UK - even though their particular profit machine will clearly increase demand for housing in the area, thus putting up social housing rents, which, along with the benefits cap will all help in the purging of poor people from Southwark.

Whether or not you find the building ugly, you surely can't help seeing the politics of it as ugly.
Click to expand...
Who are these people smuggling money out of the country?
 
I'm not saying that the people working there will be screwing us - though I'm sure that is also true - I am saying the building itself, as any large-scale profit-making enterprise at the moment, is a mechanism for screwing us, and not something that will contribute to the economy you and I function in. The money will simply flow around the global economy, free as a vulture.

I just find it weird to watch people on this thread admire it when really it is a very big, very pointy cock destined for all our arses :D And it's true there are any number of big pointy cocks fucking us at the moment, in the form of the corporate takeover of the state, and the freeing of money from all obligations to nations and citizens, but this one really makes no effort to disguise itself. Zero marks out of ten for stealth skills :p
 
Brainaddict said:
I'm not saying that the people working there will be screwing us - though I'm sure that is also true - I am saying the building itself, as any large-scale profit-making enterprise at the moment, is a mechanism for screwing us, and not something that will contribute to the economy you and I function in. The money will simply flow around the global economy, free as a vulture.

I just find it weird to watch people on this thread admire it when really it is a very big, very pointy cock destined for all our arses :D And it's true there are any number of big pointy cocks fucking us at the moment, in the form of the corporate takeover of the state, and the freeing of money from all obligations to nations and citizens, but this one really makes no effort to disguise itself. Zero marks out of ten for stealth skills :p
Click to expand...

I'd rather be fucked by this than the Gherkin. Too much girth in the middle :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

ska invita
E coli found in water supply in south-east London
Replies
6
Views
282
oryx
oryx
Helen Back
Where in London can I buy electronic mouse traps?
Replies
17
Views
375
Puddy_Tat
Puddy_Tat
Kaka Tim
In (W) London Sat night - Recomendations? Soho?
2
Replies
32
Views
913
story
story
N
London pub recommendations
2
Replies
36
Views
720
nagapie
N
tim
Horses on the rampage in Central London.
3 4 5 6 7
Replies
190
Views
6K
kebabking
kebabking
Back
Top Bottom